The Charity Case
by shadowgirlVG
Summary: Artemis Fowl isn't one to seek out friends but if taking on one charity student will get everyone off his case he might just make an exception. But this boy isn't what he seems.
1. Ultimatum

**Chapter One: Ultimatum **

Artemis Fowl II was not one for making friends. It wasn't that he was naturally anti-social; it was just that every attempt he made to be more gregarious was met with painfully astounding insights into just how stupid the people around him were.

Not everyone was an idiot of course; there were many very intelligent people throughout the world. The trouble with most of them was they tended to assume that a 14-year-old boy would just turn out to be one of the idiots of the world that they themselves were trying to avoid.

The only people whom Artemis could even hope to befriend were the reasonably intelligent who were forced to stay with him long enough to get to know him. This was how all of the young boy's friendships had formed but they were very rare in occurring. Artemis took as many steps as possible to avoid people getting to know him; it was very bad for business.

Sadly it was because of these very steps that Artemis felt were so necessary that people would think the boy was anti-social and try to make him make friends. One of these people, the one who was, at the moment, the most pertinent to Artemis's life, was the school psychologist for St. Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen, Dr. Po. Dr. Po had spent the past two years attempting to dissect and analyze the contents of the Irish boy's mind with little success. Every week when he saw Artemis he was lead to believe the boy was in need of some different diagnosis, a conclusion he would reach entirely by following the trail Artemis would leave for him. One of the few ideas that Dr. Po had arrived on by himself was that his patient needed more constant companionship from boys his own age. This was an idea he had been hammering into Artemis during their sessions for months, much to the young boy's irritation.

Dr. Po, not being an idiot himself, had seen this irritation and had, at the end of the previous school year, offered Artemis a lifeline: The next year St. Bartleby's was going to be accepting a new student from England. This boy would be attending on one of the scholarships the school offered yearly to children who applied in order to diversify the culture of their learning environment. Put bluntly the boy would be a charity case far away from home. It would be Artemis's job to take the boy under his wing and help him adjust to his new life.

Artemis did not much like the idea of playing big brother to some lost little boy but at least this way he could prove to Dr. Po that having friends his age not something he was meant for; or, if he played it well enough, he could convince the doctor that he and his new friend were inseparable and that he was now a happy boy with no need of further psychological analysis. It seemed he would win either way.

Shortly after having made this agreement Artemis found good reason to forget it. The dealings and irritations of school lost their significance under the weighty matter of capturing the legendary _Fairy Thief_ and then the weightier matters of running for his life and remembering an entire below-ground civilization. It was a pity Dr. Po couldn't know about the latter matter for then he would have known that Artemis already had friends, albeit not human ones, and the whole matter might have been discarded.

As it was Artemis was forced to remember his previous agreement when, towards the end of his summer vacation, he received a very politely worded notice that essentially told him that he had made a commitment and he had better not back out of it. Aside from this it also told him that he would now be rooming next door to his new ward (no one had a roommate at St. Bartleby's, especially not Artemis) and that the boy's name was Matthew Burbenshire. No picture of the boy was enclosed but for some inexplicable reason the name brought to Artemis's mind images of young boys from the Twenties shining shoes one the street corner and saying things like "Gosh, thank ye mister," when ever they got a quarter. Artemis didn't care how much any quarter might be worth, he would never degrade himself so much as to say something as ridiculous as "Gosh."

He took another look at the paper, it didn't really tell him anything about the boy except that he had a very common name. He supposed he could have Butler trace Matthew's government and school files but he didn't think it was worth the effort. He would just wait for the school year to begin again and allow himself to be surprised.

"Well, Mr. Burbenshire," he said with a slow smile, "let's hope that you're someone worth my time. I'd hate to be disappointed by one of peers again."

And with that he went off to plan, Artemis Fowl II was not someone to let something like this wait.


	2. New Business

**Chapter Two: New Business**

Holly Short was many things; she was a cool reasoner, a righteous fighter, a bold daredevil, and—she had recently discovered—a complete idiot. Four months ago she had quit the Lower Elements Police force and set up a detective service open to all problems under the earth. Now, after months of labor the total number of cases presented to the Short-Diggums Detective Agency was three. To their credit they had been able to solve all three cases but none of them had exactly been the type one would hope for when breaking into the detective business.

The first case had raised Holly's hopes. She had been completely baffled by the Case of the Missing Painting when at had first been presented to her. It had seemed like the type of problem that would puzzle the mind of many an investigator. She had put in a call to Artemis in hopes of throwing light on the situation. He had given her several tips on where she could search and what to ask the suspects, resulting in a lengthy conversation with an equally lengthy phone bill. She hadn't really minded at the time feeling it would be worth the money but just then Mulch had burst in declaring that he had solved the case.

It had turned out that the owner of the painting himself had stolen it and shoved it into one of the drawers of his bureau in an attempt to collect the picture's insurance. In the end he was to pay a fine for fraud and the disgruntled fairy didn't give his detectives a cent. Holly wasn't entirely sure but she also thought she had heard him call her and Mulch "meddling kids." Oh well, it wasn't like she really wanted to be able to pay her phone bill anyway.

The weeks that had followed had been nothing but mindless tedium and trying to keep Mulch out of trouble for trying to fence a previously stolen diamond. When they had finally gotten another case Holly had been disappointed to find that it was only a frantic little sprite that had lost his mother. Although the boy's parents had been grateful for the return of their son the sum they gave out of gratitude was barely enough to make ends meet. Sadly the sum Holly received after the whole incident repeated itself, thus bringing the caseload up to three, wouldn't have been enough for the elf to make ends meet even if she had decided to give up eating.

So overall it was fairly obvious that business was not going well. Every day to pass the hours of boredom Holly would berate herself for being the idiot she and giving up her wonderful, and it seemed more wonderful every day, job in recon. In her heart she knew that she wouldn't have been able to stay there after all that had happened but she also knew in her heart that she only had a week left to pay the rent on her apartment and the shabby office they were using for business. It was a tough battle but now-a-days nostalgia seemed to regularly beat out reality, things were just easier that way.

For the millionth time that day Holly looked out the window in the hopes of seeing something interesting. As luck would have it there was something that caught her eye, there was a frazzled looking centaur across the street. She seemed to be debating with herself but finally she took the plunge and trotted right to Holly's door.

The former captain tried to calm herself as the centaur came inside, she knew she shouldn't get her hopes up. After a quick mental prep Holly faced her potential customer.

The centaur spoke nervously, "Is this the Short-Diggums Detective Agency?"

Holly smiled, "That's what our sign says."

The girl sighed with relief, "Thank goodness, I was worried I might have gone the wrong way. I have a very important case for you."

The elf's expression didn't change even slightly but inside she was doing back-flips, if the matter was as urgent as it seemed then it could turn out to be just the break she'd been hoping for.

"Well Miss I can assure you that me and my partner will do everything we can to help." She stood up and stuck her head into a room at the back of the office. "Hey Mulch! We've got a customer, get out here."

With a whoop that matched Holly's feelings exactly the dwarf raced out to the front of the office with a note-pad to take down everything the young centaur had to say.

However happy Holly Short might have been at that moment it had absolutely no affect on the mood of Artemis Fowl. He had now been waiting outside the gate of a crowded, noisy airport for the last three hours. The flight which Matthew Burbenshire had taken to reach Ireland had been delayed. That wouldn't have bothered Artemis very much but it had been one of those irritating delays where a series of miscommunications within the air-service led all people concerned to believe that the flight they were expecting was about to come in every fifteen minutes and you could never be sure when to really believe it.

This meant that for the past three hours Artemis had been trapped in his cheap plastic chair with the paranoia that as soon as he left the flight would arrive and the boy he was entrusted with guiding to the school would be lost and alone having no one to blame but Artemis. This idea did not suit the Fowl boy at all, the plan he had devised would be tricky enough as it was, he had no desire to add overcoming a bad first impression to it.

After fifteen more minutes Artemis was considering getting up and stretching his legs just to make sure he still could after sitting in that uncomfortable chair for so long when he saw the glorious sight of people exiting the gate. The plane had finally arrived.

He quickly looked himself over. He had worn his school uniform although the term had not officially started so he could be easily recognized. He now adjusted the St. Bartleby's patch on his vest to make it stand out more and scanned the departing travelers.

The boy he was looking for was one of the last to depart; he had apparently been hindered by his large, overstuffed duffle bag. Artemis was surprised that the bag had been allowed on the plane as carry-on luggage, it would have been a tight fit to even get it x-rayed. Setting the minor mystery aside Artemis looked at Matthew more closely. He knew it was him because of the uniform he wore which matched with Artemis's almost exactly save its somewhat looser fit and the absence of the required tie. The boy was a little short for his age (he was two years older than Artemis), but he was roughly Artemis's height making him about one meter and 67 centimeters. His weight would have been more difficult to guess but he was certainly a skinny, gangly lad. He had light brown hair to about his ears, green eyes, and a fairly handsome face if one thought about it objectively. He seemed like a relatively kind person but his wide-eyed, innocent demeanor and the loose fit of his uniform gave away his common roots. Overall he wasn't the worst person Artemis might have imagined but he certainly wasn't all that he could have hoped for.

Matthew was looking around anxiously so Artemis walked up to him. "Mr. Burbenshire I presume?"

The older boy looked relived at being addressed and nodded. "You must be Artemis then right?"

Artemis would have answered but it was at that moment that there was bang and he suddenly felt himself pinned to the floor.


	3. Thinking Fast

**Chapter Three: Thinking Fast**

Business was slow, slower than molasses on a hot day. Business like this was something that would send most fairies skittering off, scared of sticking out the draught. But Mulch Diggums was not most fairies, he was Mulch Diggums: Private Eye. No one knew the underworld criminal web like he did and no case would remain unsolved while he was on it.

Then there was Holly, his trusted assistant, she was a bit inexperienced but Mulch kept her afloat. Perhaps with time she'd be able to learn from him and work some cases by herself when he was too busy with the more important ones. Not that they were getting enough business right now to even pretend to be busy.

Just then Holly poked her head into the room where Mulch's sitting and brooding was taking place, breaking into his thoughts. "Hey Mulch! We've got a customer, get out here."

Immediately the dwarf let out a whoop and rushed into the main room of their headquarters. He then quickly whipped out a notepad and prepared to take down the details of their first case in weeks. Once this was accomplished Mulch took a good look at the customer.

Using his great powers of deduction he decided that she was a centaur as could be clearly seen by her horse-like teeth (and possibly her four legs and tail but Mulch wasn't one to take the easy path). She relatively young, had blue eyes and blonde hair, and her horsy features were a slightly grayish tint of white. Just as the dwarf finished making note of these features the girl began to speak.

"My name is Estella Lunos, I've come here because I am in desperate need of help and it is vital that word of my problem not leak out. Can I trust you?" She looked at them both expectantly.

"Discretion is our middle name Ms. Lunos," said Holly. "You can rest assured any secret you have will be safe with us."

With a sigh of relief the girl began her story. "The matter which needs solving is very simple to say, my father has been kidnapped. For the past several decades I have lived alone with him since my mother is long since dead and as he ages my fathers health is deteriorating rapidly. We have been to many doctors but they all assure us that he only has a few more years to live. I suppose I should give you a bit more background about his life thus far though. His name is Mamilton Lunos and he has always been a bit solitary. As far as I know the only people he ever grew close to were my mother and me. When she died he went into further seclusion and would only ever speak to me. He has devoted the rest of his life to his work.

"My family is part of a long line of prosthetic limb manufacturers. We have run the company for the past five generations and brought much hope to the maimed. There are even rumors that our designs were what inspired the original mud man branch of the field back when we were still above ground. Of all the workers our business has ever known my father is by far the best, he devotes a special passion to every order that comes in, making it special for every customer.

"About a week ago he got a very unusual request: someone wanted four extra-large limbs capable of independent movement. The fairy who delivered it seemed to be very irritated to have to deal with me rather than proceeding directly to my father. This, and the fact that he seemed to have all his limbs didn't bother me at the time, many people are very self-conscious of their need for new arms or legs and would prefer to have as few people know about as possible. They will also often send a close family member in their place when the initial order is made.

"However when I took the order to my father he was very confused because it was so unusual and decided to see our customer in front. The instant my father saw him he went pale and seem as if he were about to collapse from shock. He was silent for a moment and then he told me he would be dealing with the mysterious fairy himself and that I wasn't to disturb them. They then went into the back room and remained in there for several hours.

"I have now idea what happened in there but for the next few days before his disappearance my father was beside himself. He finally announced three days ago that we were going to be going on a long trip and that I should prepare to leave immediately. The next morning when it was time to go I went to his room to wake him up but his bed hadn't been slept in. I thought maybe he had just spent the night working on some of our other orders but he wasn't in his workshop either.

"I then went back to his room to see if I could find any clues as to where he was and it was then that I noticed my mother's bracelet on the floor. Ever since she had died father had kept it with him at all times. I knew something was very wrong. I went outside his window and saw that there were three sets of footprints there; one was undoubtedly Father's, one looked about the size of an elf's, and the last would start and stop sporadically so I think it must have been a sprite hoping into flight every few seconds.

"The trail ended at the road so I have no idea what happened next, though I have been trying to find out these past few days, and now that I am at my rope's end I've decided to go to the professionals for help."

Holly had listened to the story with as much professionalism as she could muster but she couldn't help a hint of excitement trickling in, this was just like the mysteries in old detective movies. She almost giggled but quickly covered it with a cough and proceeded to business.

"What did this fairy who visited you look like?"

"He was of a fairly average height, he had dark brown skin and his hair was cooper. He looked fairly old, about my father's age and he was definitely an elf."

"Did he seem to know your father?"

"I don't see how he couldn't."

"Do you have any idea who he was?"

"Not in the slightest. He didn't even give us a name for our registry."

"Are there any security monitors in your store?"

"Of course, I went to see what had happened in the back room when the elf had come that very night. Something was wrong with the recording; I think Father might have encoded it so I couldn't see. The same thing happened to the hours of the recording when my father must have been kidnapped so I have no idea exactly when that happened either."

"Do you know of any reason why anyone would wish to kidnap him?"

"None at all, few people knew my father but those who did quite liked. No one holds a grudge against him as far as I know."

Holly thought for a moment, this was really a most intriguing case. A missing father, a mysterious elf, and an encoded security recording, these all pointed to something sinister.

"Do you have a copy of the encoded hours?"

"Yes, I brought it on this disk. Do you think you can decode it?"

"I can't, but I think I know someone who can." Holly tossed the disk over to Mulch. "We'll run this down to Foaly as soon as possible."

Estella's head snapped up, "You know Foaly?"

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Butler had been twenty feet away in line at an airport coffee stand to buy Artemis a bagel when the flight came in. Seeing it he headed back toward his charge, now that the object of their journey had arrived the manservant doubted Artemis would still be hungry.

As he approached he saw Artemis begin to speak to a boy slightly taller than him who could only be Matthew Burbenshire. However, being the highly alert and well-trained bodyguard he was, that was not all Butler saw. He also saw a man across the terminal reach for his ankle and unstrap a small gun. He saw the man raise the gun and point it towards Artemis. He did not see the man fire the gun because by that point he was running towards his principal at a speed that would astonish most athletes.

When the bang of the bullet came Butler had almost reached Artemis but was still a step away. The young genius was now lying on the ground but the strange thing was that the other boy he had been speaking to was on top of him. Butler quickly surveyed the damage; it seemed that both boys were perfectly fine, it seemed that Matthew had pulled Artemis to the ground an instant before the gun had fired.

The bodyguard looked around anxiously; the shot had frightened the crowds and the airport was now full of people screaming and running every which way, it would be impossible to track the shooter now. Hopefully the man had been caught on camera and would be caught by the airport police. Butler wasn't counting on it though, if someone knew enough to have a reason to shoot Artemis he was probably informed enough to be able to escape security like this.

At Butler's feet Artemis lay dazed for a moment. It was enough of a shock to be thrown to the floor in the first place but to be thrown there because you were being shot at tended to heighten the blow. After the moment had passed Artemis tried to get up and realized he couldn't, there was still a boy pinning him down.

"Would you kindly get off?" he said icily.

Mathew blinked and seemed to realize the position he was in. He hastily jumped up and muttered apologies which the young Fowl heir brushed aside. Instead he asked what had first come into his mind when his thoughts were back in order. "How did you know I was going to be shot at?"

A moment before the young boy from Britain had merely looked scared; at the sound of this sentence he looked absolutely petrified. "You were the one being shot at? You mean it wasn't some businessman behind you?"

Artemis mentally smacked himself, having the boy know his new guide had been the target of an assassination attempt was going to complicate matters a great deal. Sometimes he wished more than anything he had one of the Peoples' mind-wiping machines. Sadly for now it was just wishful thinking and he would have to clean up this particular mess himself.

Artemis thought fast, "I'm sorry you had witness that within your first five minutes in Ireland but," he leaned forward as if confiding some important private matter, "my father is on the verge of making a large amount of money right now an I fear that man was trying to shoot a tranquilizer at me so that I could be kidnapped and held for ransom."

This explanation seemed to satisfy the boy despite its many holes (it was a spur of the moment plan) and though he was still far from calm he seemed to have recovered the ability to think and walk independently. During this time Butler had been guiding them discreetly through the airport, avoiding all the havoc and security, to take them to their car.

After five minutes of driving the ability of speech also returned to Matthew and he began to question Artemis once more.

"If someone's trying to kidnap you what are you going to do?"

"I'm sure I'll be perfectly safe inside the school, their security is top-notch." Butler's was at any rate and he would be on red-alert until this matter was resolved. "In the mean-time I refuse to live a life of fear so would like to proceed as normally as possible. I would like it if you would help me by letting me be your guide at school like we had planned." He put on his best hopeful face.

Matthew seemed to still be trying to get to grips with everything that had happened. Artemis could almost see the emotions of fear, shock, and confusion fighting it out on the boy's face.

"All right," he said with a sigh, "I suppose I can do that much for you, though I have no idea how you can be so calm about all this."

Artemis's cold features broke into a slight grin; everything was going wonderfully as far as his plan with the boy was concerned. This airport scare might even serve as a nice bond between them. The Fowl heir would never have to see Dr. Po's condescending face again.

"Thank you Matthew, let us start over. My name is Artemis Fowl II." He held out his hand.

Matthew smiled and shook it. "Pleased to meet you Artemis, my name is Matthew Burbenshire I, but please just call me Matt. Being called Matthew just isn't me."

"Very well then Matt, allow me to be the first to welcome you to St. Bartleby's School for Young Gentlemen. I hope you enjoy it here."

They had just driven up the gravel driveway of the majestic school. It was everything Matt had hoped it would be. In a building this magnificent who knew what he would learn, he only had to hope that no one would learn too much about him.

And so, each with their own thoughts, the boys ascended the front steps to begin what promised to be a very interesting school year.

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I'm very sorry that Artemis made such a small appearance in this chapter. I promise the next one will have more of him. I hope you all have enjoyed this story thus far, I'll see you soon. Remember, reviews only encourage.


	4. Treachery

**Chapter Four: Treachery **

Artemis sighed in frustration. This was really far too much stress for one adolescent; of course, he had no one to blame but himself. It had been two weeks since his airport attack and he was still no closer to finding out who was behind it. He had spoken to Butler about it and they both agreed that the potential assassin was both an amateur hit-man, he had missed a ridiculously easy target at close range, and he was most likely one trying to avenge a personal grudge, no one who wasn't acting in anger shot at someone in a place as open or as crowded as an airport like that man had. However, aside from these deductions Artemis was at a complete loss. He had exhausted all his sources and he still had no idea who would be angry enough with him to try and kill him.

There was also the problem with Matt; despite a valiant effort on both their parts the two boys could simply find nothing to bond them. Matt had tried to understand higher science and mathematics but no matter how much Artemis tried to simplify them they were still way over Matt's head. Likewise Artemis had tried to take an interest in skate boarding but there was only so much attention he could pay to something that amounted to nothing more than an elaborate way to hurt oneself. He had already dealt with several kinds of pain on his adventures and he saw no reason to inflict anymore without even having the motivation of saving some lives.

That brought about the third problem. As much as he hated to admit it Artemis sorely missed his fairy friends. Now that Holly was a civilian it would be much harder for her to come to the surface and almost impossible for them to arrange a meeting. It was true they spoke every so often but it wasn't the same. To make matters worse she hadn't even called recently, apparently things weren't going well at her detective agency. Artemis hoped that she was getting along fairly well though; he hated to think she might be living on a street.

There was a knock at the door interrupting the boy's thoughts, a moment later Matt walked in carrying what appeared to be all the text books he had and then some. Lately the young English boy had taken to having Artemis help him study the material his classes were covering. It had only taken Matt a few days after orientation to realize just how intense his education at St. Bartleby's would be compared to his old public school and that things would be much easier over-all if Artemis helped him along.

With a sigh the young genius turned away from his desk and prepared himself for another evening of grim patience. He didn't mind teaching Matt, in fact he quite enjoyed it, but it was infinitely annoying to have to correct all the teachers' mistakes before being able to get through to the boy.

"Are we going to be working with any particular subject tonight?"

"Well I'd like to go over everything we're doing in general again," said Matt, "but we also have a test on The Lord of the Flies in our English class tomorrow. We should probably study for that especially."

"I suppose I'll have to come in to take that then," said Artemis with resignation.

Matt looked slightly sad for a moment, it was times like this that Artemis saw that the boy was really quite emotional though he tried to hide it. "I wish you would come to class more often Artemis, it's so dull when there's no one to talk to."

The previous year Artemis had proven his intellect to his teachers on countless occasions so he had been allowed to skip a grade this year and was now enrolled in most of Matt's classes. The total number of days Artemis had actually attended these classes was currently at two now, it had only taken that long for his teachers to get fed up with him and give him passes to the library every day.

"Well it's really the teachers' fault. If they didn't massacre their subjects so much I would be able to stand sitting through them." Suddenly he noticed something odd. "Matt, what happened to your face?"

Matt touched his left eye self-consciously, there was a vivid purple bruise forming around it. He was slightly surprised Artemis hadn't noticed it sooner but he had seemed distracted when Matt had first entered the room.

"Oh, this thing is nothing," he said with false cheer. "I just fell."

Artemis didn't say anything to this remark but if his expression could be translated into words it would have been something along the lines of "It is an insult to my intelligence and yours if you think I'm going to buy an excuse that pathetic so you had better tell me the truth or at least something a little more possible." Matt wished he could take a picture; it was a very funny face.

"Alright, I get it. I did actually fall, but it was into someone's fist. After that I also managed to have my stomach fall on that fist several times, it was quite embarrassing clumsiness on my part."

Artemis's eyes widened, "Someone beat you up? Who? Why?"

Matt shifted uncomfortably, "It wasn't that bad, Butler happened to be walking along the field we were on and he broke it up pretty fast."

"That doesn't make it alright. As long as you're at this school you're my responsibility and I need to make sure this sort of thing doesn't happen again!"

Artemis was surprised at how adamant he felt about this. It struck him as a personal blow that this boy who actually wanted to be his friend should be hurt without his knowledge. He wondered why Butler hadn't told him what had happened. Matt was quiet for a few moments before finally giving in.

"I don't know what their names were but there were three of them and they were defiantly upperclassmen. It seems they don't like the idea of a pauper like me being in their school." He looked up at Artemis. "What do you think I should do?"

What to do indeed, they couldn't just go to the teachers, bullies here tended to have half-a-dozen alibis set up before they even finished planning their cruelties. Any investigation into these alibis would just make them angrier the next time they targeted Matt. This was a bit of a dilemma.

"Do you think you could recognize these three if you saw them again?"

Matt nodded, "I definitely could."

The criminal mastermind smiled vampirically, "Then I think I have a plan."

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Several time zones away Daniel Crane touched a bruise, very similar to Matt's, which he had received a few days before. He had no doubt he deserved the injury, he had been stupid, undeniably stupid.

Two weeks ago he had let his anger get the better of him. When he had learned the Fowl boy would be out in the open for the first time in weeks he couldn't resist going after him. What had resulted was a scenario so embarrassing that anyone who had even read a book about assassinations would have hung their head in shame. To his credit though Daniel Crane was not an assassin, he was an art thief.

What few people understood in the criminal underworld was that he and his partner Andrew Sparrow were not mere art thieves. They were _the_ art thieves. Almost every major art theft within the past decade had been organized or at least been involving the two and their lawyer business front. They were held the world over as the top of their trade. They were untouchable.

Or so they had thought.

Artemis Fowl had not been a name they had attached much worry to. They knew he was a child-genius and a criminal mastermind but his crimes were in a different field than theirs, a comrade of sorts, not an enemy. Then, seemingly overnight, he had changed. He had started robbing thieves, and then making himself into a modern-day Robin Hood by giving away what he had taken.

This might have still not bothered Sparrow and Crane but then Artemis went after them. He stole the jewel of their crown, The Fairy Thief. Their reputation crumbled, people started questioning if they were losing their touch; business was going down the tubes and it seemed their life's work might be ruined.

As if that wasn't enough, he had kept stealing from them! Artemis probably didn't know who had previously been in charge of the seven masterpieces he had recently returned to the public but they all went back to the same source. They knew that something had to be done about this outrageous boy and they had decided it would be best to finish him. Crane had tried to this himself but he was an anger-prone lawyer not known for his aim. It had been a horrible blunder and now the boy would be on high alert.

He had defiantly deserved that punch.

Andrew Sparrow had been pacing the room for the past five minutes speaking Russian into his cell phone. Finally he hung up and turned to Crane.

"You're lucky, I finally found someone willing to deal with our little problem after the botch job you did on it. He says he's going to wait a few months for the boy's suspicions to go down but it'll be done."

"Good," said Crane with an evil sort of smirk, "now we should focus on our real business. I hear there's a delightful painting called the "Old Woman in the Wood" showing in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston this week, maybe we should take a look."

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Author's Note: I'm terribly sorry about the long wait my-oh-so-few but oh-so-charming readers, finals have been riding me like a bucking bronco and there's been no time to write. That will change now though, school is out and I am bored, writing is my only hope. Look for chapter five soon with actual appearances from Holly and her story line. If anyone has any questions or comments or just wants to yell at me to hurry up you know where the review button is.


	5. Super Strutting

**Chapter Five: Super-Strutting **

It was three in the afternoon when Foaly clomped into the Spit and Scratch bar. As he was clomping he wondered again why there should be any public place with such a disgusting name and why under the earth Holly had wanted to meet him here. She had said in her note that it was a business matter, probably something to do with that detective agency of hers but he was still glad to hear from her. The last time Foaly had seen her she had still been in mourning over the commander, it would be nice to catch up on what had happened to them since.

He went to the corner of the building that looked least likely to collapse and took in his surroundings more fully. The place was a well-known hang-out for dwarf gangs and it was rumored that the devastating Gaseous Attack formation had first started here. The walls were dull and murky and the ceiling light was poor. Foaly wondered if the establishment's owner even knew what a health inspector was.

Five minutes past with the now slightly nervous centaur still sitting in his corner. In order to get his mind off the scary looking dwarves looking at him from the counter he began to make a list of all the things he would complain about when his friend got here and they were a safe distance away. He was at number forty-three when Holly stuck her head through the door.

To Foaly's surprise she didn't come toward him, she didn't even come all the way in; she just took a step inside and motioned frantically at him. He walked toward her curiously and followed her outside.

Holly looked a bit irritated, and perhaps a bit thinner than the last time he had seen her, but other than that she was just how he remembered her: a short, fiery, loving elf. Foaly actually felt his eyes getting a little moist; he hadn't realized how much he'd missed her. He was on the verge of doing something sentimental when he came to his senses.

"Hey Holly, what's the big idea with sending me here to meet you? Do you want me to get food poisoning?"

Holly sighed; it looked like her favorite paranoid centaur was the same as always. "I didn't choose this place, it was Mulch's idea. He thought it had the right atmosphere for detectives, what with all the rough-and-tumble types here. And don't worry; I was sure you wouldn't touch any food here with a three-meter pole."

Foaly smiled, so the ex-convict was here too, but where? He looked behind Holly but couldn't see any sign of him.

"He's inside," said Holly to Foaly's obvious question, "it seems he forgot that he got some of the thugs that make up this delightful atmosphere in trouble in the first place. As soon as they saw him they dragged him around back to remind him of their history together."

"So why don't you go in after him, guns blazing and whatnot? You can take a handful of dwarves."

"That's what I'm going to do," she said, taking out her plasma gun, "but someone has to keep an eye on the girl." Holly point behind her and it was then that Foaly saw the prettiest centaur that he would ever meet.

Speaking objectively Ms. Lunos was hardly one that could be considered a model, even by horse-standards. But she was cute, cute in a shy, bookish sort-of way that easily lent one the idea that she would look quite fetching in glasses if faeries had need of that sort of thing (eye surgery is much more advanced underground). The reason Foaly considered her the prettiest centaur he would ever see was because of this bookish appeal which corresponded so much to his own intelligent nature. He was, however, unused to emotions like this and thus, objectively speaking of course, now looked a great deal more like an ass than a horse.

Whether or not the former Recon officer noticed this wave of emotion is uncertain, but she did give a mild smirk as she introduced them.

"Foaly this is Mulch's and my latest client, Miss Estella Lunos. Miss Lunos, this is Foaly, the LEP's favorite paranoid centaur." With that she was off to rescue Mulch but it is doubtful either of the centaurs noticed.

After several seconds of silence Foaly realized there was only so much time a pack of dwarves could keep Holly busy for and decided to break the ice.

"So…hi."

It was not the height of suaveness but it did the trick. Estella, who until this point, had been staring at Foaly with something that might be called amazed disbelief broke into a wide grin.

"H-hi!" she stammered. "I can't believe I'm meeting you like this, I've always admired your work so much! I was so impressed when I saw your wing designs a few years back, the design is so extraordinary! Did you know that with a few small tweaks they can be used to replace the wings of sprites that have lost theirs?"

Foaly was taken aback. The girl was practically glowing with admiration for him and they had just met. Of course he knew he was brilliant but he rarely met anyone else who did. Obviously this girl was smart as well as pretty; this was shaping up to be a wonderful day.

"I had thought that might be possible, I'm not given much time to delve into medicine, what with all my _other _projects, but I have had tweaking my wing designs on my to-do list for a while. So would you like to explain what you did? I know a nice cyber café near here—"

It was then that Holly whacked the side of Foaly's head. She had just returned, dragging a slightly shaken but otherwise fine Mulch behind her.

"We're here on business, remember? You two can talk about fairy wings on your own time. Right now we have a case to solve."

"Of course, the case." Foaly rubbed his head in irritation. "Would you care to tell me what it is?"

"Mulch will explain to you in the car, we're going to an actually decent restaurant."

"No, no, that's alright Holly," Foaly said hastily. "I'm sure Ms. Lunos could explain everything just as well."

Holly climbed into her driver's seat and turned back to face him, "That may be true Foaly but this ride is no where near roomy enough for two centaurs to sit next to each other. It's going to be cramped as it is so you'll have to make do with Mulch."

The dwarf scowled, "Hey! I'm your partner Holly! Don't go treating me like I'm some undesirable; do you know how many times I've saved your hide?"

"Oh shut up convict," grumbled Foaly, kicking him slightly.

"Hey! I was cleared of all charges!" No one was really listening anymore but it was important to make points like this. Really, detectives deserved far more respect; but then, that was the way of the world wasn't it? Mulch sighed and climbed into the shuttle after Foaly and then they were off to seek out a restaurant with an entirely wrong atmosphere.

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It had only taken a day to identify Matt's three assailants; in truth Artemis was a bit disappointed. Terrance Miller, Adam Jackstein, and Henry DeTamble were just run-of-the-mill bullies who would target anyone who looked vulnerable and didn't meet their standards of what a wealthy blue-blood should be. They were really quite the obvious choices, Artemis could have figured out they were the ones who beat up Matt if he had simply had to guess.

There was no helping it though and something still had to be done to make sure Matt wasn't attacked again. That wouldn't be a problem though. Artemis had a plan. He had gone over it with Matt about a dozen times over the past three days and finally everything was ready, all they had to do now was have a little chat with the threatening three.

"Could I possibly borrow a disk? I need it for my multimedia project."

Artemis's heart skipped a beat and he jumped up suddenly. Matt had snuck up behind him with stealth that would impress even Butler. As a side effect of their coalition against Matt's bullies the boys had grown closer and now Matt seemed to think of Artemis as more of a friend. While this was helpful to his overall plans Artemis had discovered that it had its disadvantages, such as now when the young English boy no longer seemed to think it was necessary to knock when entering his "mate's" room.

Matt smiled innocently, "I'm sorry, did I scare you?"

Artemis just glared and slammed his laptop shut, (just hard enough to illustrate his annoyance, not nearly enough to damage it).

Matt never seemed to be very intimidated by Artemis's glares and this was no exception, he chuckled to himself for a few moments then finally calmed down. "Sorry Arty, you just have such a funny face when you're scared. Anyway could I borrow a disk? I really do need it."

Lately Matt had taken to using Artemis's nickname, he seemed to find it funny for reasons the young genius couldn't fathom. He supposed it was just the result of another of the boy's odd quirks.

"That's awfully presumptuous of you," Artemis said slightly bitterly, "sneaking in here, scaring me half to death, and then demanding things. I don't see why I should give you anything."

"Well I suppose you don't have to," Matt said with a sigh, "but then where will I get a disk? I'll have nothing to put my presentation on, and then I'll fail my multimedia class, which will sink my GPA like a stone and it will be all your fault. I'll be forced to hate you and then you'll have to go back to those horrible school psychology sessions."

Artemis glowered at Matt. He was actually a fairly smart boy. For the first time Artemis was beginning to understand why most people around him found him so annoying. Artemis turned around and tossed the first disk he could find at Matt.

"And Dr. Po wonders why I don' try to make more friends my age," Artemis muttered to himself. "Get going now. You have what you came for and I need to focus if I'm going to put the finishing touches on my, our plan."

Matt nodded and headed for the door, "It's going to happen tonight at seven, right?" Artemis nodded. "Alright I'll see you then." He paused for a second and for once he seemed completely serious, "Thank you Artemis, this really means a lot to me."

And with that he left.

A stab of guilt went through Artemis's heart. He knew Matt couldn't know his secrets, least of all his criminal tendencies or the existence of the People, but it hurt to know how highly he was held in the boy's mind when he was really a far more selfish person.

In any case now was not the time for psychological introspection, he had a plan to finish. It wasn't the quaint little plot he had arranged to help Matt, he had finished that that morning, no, he had bigger fish to fry. This particular fish was Signora Antonia Ganbale, a wealthy Italian jetsetter known for her taste in fine arts and her willingness to pay any price to get them.

She had recently become the new owner of the painting "Old Woman in the Wood," which had been stolen from the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston mere days before. She was currently staying in a penthouse in France and Artemis had decided to make her his newest target.

He had already discovered where the painting was kept in her home and had obtained a copy of the house's blueprints; all that was left was to plot out a way through her security. This was what he had been working on when Matt had snuck up behind him, he was just lucky to have been able to shut his laptop without raising suspicion.

Artemis looked at his watch; it was almost seven, time to get moving.

The plan didn't really require his presence but he wanted Matt to know he was there anyway, for morale support at least. He arrived just in time, it seemed the fireworks were about to start.

Henry, Terrance, and Adam were all gathered around Matt in the field where they had beaten him three days before. Artemis had chosen the location; he had thought it would be ironic.

"All right, speak up Pauper!" said Terrance. "Why'd you call us all out here?"

Matt smiled smugly; he was playing his part perfectly. "I called you to give you a warning. Three days ago you assaulted me for not being someone you consider worthy of this school. It's fairly obvious I'm not the highest caliber when it comes to strength—"

Adam scoffed, "That's an understatement."

Matt glared at the interruption but continued with his speech, "and as you were so kind to point out at the time I am also certainly not wealthy. However, I am smart. It was my intelligence that got me into this school in the first place and it is my intelligence that's going to keep you from bothering me or anyone else at this school ever again."

All three boys were quiet for a moment in a slightly stunned silence, then the moment was gone and they all began to laugh.

"What are you going to do?" asked Terrance. "Hold us off with a geometric theorem?"

"No, I'll hold you off with these!" With a slightly theatrical flurry Matt took out a handful of photographs and tossed them at his tormenters.

The boys' laughter died almost instantly and their faces grew pale with fear as they gazed at the pictures.

"You can't threaten us with these!" exclaimed Henry. "They're fakes!"

"That may be true," he said with a grin that mirrored Artemis's own trademarked smirk, "but they look real. You wouldn't be able to prove they aren't real, and if you attack me, or I hear about any more bullying from you to anyone else, these pictures will find their way onto every computer in the school. I'll also be sure that each of your parents gets their own, personal copy. It's your choice."

The boys looked at each other. The choice they had been given was no real choice at all.

"Alright," said Adam, "you won't hear from us again."

Matt beamed at Artemis, who was hidden behind a tree, as the former bullies trudged away, the very image of defeat. The plan had worked perfectly.

Artemis knew that bullies preyed on things they did not understand and thus feared, he had decided to use this weakness against them. The pictures he had made depicted the three boys in very intimate embraces, with each other. They would know the photos weren't real but they were very well done, if they got out Henry, Adam, and Terrance would forever have to bear the "shame" of being rumored to be gay. Artemis had known they would do almost anything to avoid such a disgrace.

While going over the plan Matt had asked what Artemis's personal stand was on the subject. In truth he felt sexual orientation was a ridiculous reason to look down on someone. He was personally acquainted with several brilliant scientists and doctors who were openly homosexual and had made great advancements in their fields.

Sometimes Artemis wondered where he stood physically on the subject. As he had yet to be involved in a relationship he could not be sure but thinking of Juliet he felt that he did have an inclination to girls. It didn't really matter though, time would tell for sure.

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Author's Note: Hello again, it is I the delightful VG. This chapter was slightly tedious and my carpals are feeling some pain but I am happy with it. It gets some important plot points underway. This is actually the longest plotline I've ever undertaken, if I follow it through to the end it will be the longest story I've ever written by a long shot.

On the subject of following this story through are my reviews. I am a bit bitter about not having many but something that seems interesting is that no one has ever reviewed twice. In my past stories fans would often review again when I updated but that doesn't seem to be the case now, interesting.

This chapter also ends on a slightly edgy note, or at least it feels edgy to me. I'm not used to writing about homosexuality though my views are pretty much the ones I've given Artemis. I've been wanting to write how I think he'd feel about the subject ever since I read one story where he seemed outraged and embarrassed at the idea that he might be gay. I believe the line was something like "He didn't think there was anything wrong with it but Artemis knew he was DEFINITELY NOT gay." For someone who has no problem with it he sure seems paranoid that he might be seen as one of the "impure." I've always thought he was open minded so long as the person in question wasn't an idiot.

Anyway, thanks for your support. I'm not sure when chapter six will be up but it'll hopefully be within a week. It depends if my hand stops hurting.


	6. Reconnecting

**Chapter Six: Reconnecting**

Matt was getting the hang of life at an all-boys boarding school. It had been a tad odd at first but now he knew what he was doing. He got up at 6:45, woke up Artemis—who would have slept until ten if left to his own devices—went down to breakfast by seven, had classes from 7:30-3 with a break for lunch, spent time with Artemis or entertained himself until dinner at six, had a study session with Artemis until nine, and then went to bed to begin the cycle again.

To an observer it wouldn't seem like a very exciting routine but Matt liked it. He loved his lessons which, despite what Artemis had to say about them, were much better than the ones he had had back home. He also loved spending time with Artemis. He could understand why many would find him annoying and arrogant but Matt had too much respect for the boy genius to be annoyed by him. Not only was Artemis clever and knowledgeable he was also brave. Matt didn't know how he would act if he were shot at but it hadn't seemed to bother Artemis at all. Maybe he had been a little frazzled but he had kept his wits about him.

There hadn't been any more kidnapping attempts since the incident at the airport, or if there had been Artemis hadn't mentioned it. Matt hadn't been able to pay very much attention to Artemis's problems between the constant piles of assignments he had and his anxiety over the boys who were constantly bullying him. Thankfully he no longer had to worry about the latter problem, thanks to his black eye Artemis had finally found out about his tormenters and had brought about their effective end.

They were now about a month into the school year. Although Matt was enjoying and doing well in his classes, largely thanks to Artemis, he was still grateful that it was the weekend. Artemis had decided to spend their two days off at home so Matt was going to have to entertain himself.

After breakfast that Saturday morning he was just wondering exactly what he would do that day; he might practice his skateboarding at the local skate-park or maybe he would go into town for the day. He could get some new shirts—his were falling apart a bit—maybe pick up some books, and he had heard there was a popular arcade worth going to.

These thoughts ran through his head as he headed down the hall to his room but they all stopped when he noticed something outside his door. Sitting there, looking perfectly innocent was a letter. This wasn't at all unusual since all the boy's mail was left outside their rooms but Matt got an odd feeling of foreboding looking at it. Warily he picked it up and opened it. The letter inside ran like this:

_Salutations Dearest Matthew,_

_I hope school is treating my "wonderful brother" well. Things around here have been down-right dull. Mum's shooting a commercial for false teeth next week and the highlight of Dad's life right now is the edition of cat-shaped cookies to his bakery's goods. _

_As for me I'll touring around with my team from October to May. We're sure to be a hit now that we have more members. Anyway, sorry for the short letter Matt, it's almost two in the morning now and I am bloody tired. I'll be sure to write more soon._

_Your Loving Brother,_

_Theodore_

Matt breathed a sigh of relief. It was just an ordinary, how-do-you-do, run-of-the-mill, boring letter. He started to fold it up to put it back in the envelope but then he noticed something written on the back.

_P.S._

_I'll be visiting you this Sunday. I can't wait to see all your little friends._

Oh bloody hell.

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Artemis had indeed wanted to see his parents. It had been a while and he did miss them, but they were not his only reason for wanting to leave school that weekend. Mr. and Mrs. Fowl were currently on a vacation Artemis had insisted they needed in Strasbourg, France, which just happened to be where Signora Ganbale was currently residing.

The matter of retrieving her painting was becoming so simple now that he was almost reluctant to do it, but he couldn't go back on his plans now. He had been informed that Ganbale was visiting Paris for the day and his parents weren't expecting to arrive at the airport for another two hours. He had plenty of time to take the painting, put it somewhere secure and return to mingle with the exiting passengers of the flight he'd said he'd be on.

Butler pulled up the car in an alley next to Ganbale's penthouse. It was far from empty, Artemis knew that there were half-a-dozen servants bustling about it from the employment records he had researched. This many people in the house actually helped his purpose. It meant that most of the security systems would be off. Now all that was left was to get past the people.

He brought down the mirror of their rental to check his face once more before they began. Everything was perfect; it was time to go into action. He got out of the car and looked around, the alley-way was clear. He stepped to the edge of the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and dove into his act.

Georgiana Reed hated to clean the windows but Madam Ganbale was very particular and she was insistent that she be able to clearly see out of any window at any time. She was about to put her rag to the glass when she noticed something peculiar, there was a young boy lying on the doorstep. She supposed it was just some young hooligan making a nuisance of himself but she knew it would be best to make sure.

It turned out to be a very good thing she did, once she got a good look at him it was obvious that he was not laying on the steps out of disrespect but necessity; the boy had obviously been soundly beaten. Quickly she fetched her fellow maid and sister Eliza and together they carried the poor youth in, laying him out on the living room couch.

"What do you think happened?" Eliza asked her sister in rapid French.

"His clothes seem to be American; my guess is that he a tourist. Someone must have mugged him in the alley. Open the window will you, he needs fresh air."

Eliza quickly complied. "But what else can we do for him?"

"We should call the hospital of course, they will be able to help—," but Georgiana's statement was cut short as she noticed the room was filling with smoke. Immediately the two sisters lost all thoughts of their charge. They only knew the room was on fire and that they needed to get out.

The moment he heard the two maids leave Artemis was bolt upright, he knew he didn't have much time. As he had hoped he had been placed in same front room that held the painting he was after. There hadn't much risk of any other placement, he knew that no matter who found him they wouldn't be carrying him far and according to the house's blueprints this was the room closest to the entrance.

He had planned to weakly request an open window but the maids had thought of it themselves, sometimes it was just too easy. The window had been Butler's signal to throw in the smoke bomb and frighten all unwanted witnesses from the room.

Someone would soon come to rescue the "helpless beaten tourist." He quickly crossed the room to where the painting was rather blatantly hanging, the smoke served to also cover his movements to anyone on the street. He took a second to examine the picture, it depicted a young medieval girl being approached from behind by an old woman coming out of a tree. Artemis rather liked it, perhaps he would get a copy for his room.

Aside from that he saw that almost certainly the original, the paint was obviously old and the brush strokes matched Arthur Rackham's other works. Artemis scanned the painting's frame with the compact security detector that was built into his watch, there were some systems but none were active because it was the middle of the day. Some people could be so foolish about their valuables. He quickly took down the canvas and removed it from its frame. He then rolled it up and carefully placed it in a special compartment in his pants. With all the excitement it would probably be hours before it was missed.

Artemis heard footsteps, it looked like he was about to be "rescued". It was just in time too, the smoke was starting to get to him. He quickly went back to the couch and acted his wounded part again. Two French firemen burst in and helped him out into the street, they asked if he was alright but he feigned dizziness and ignorance of French to wave them off.

Just then Butler pushed through the crowd. "Trevor!" he cried in his best American accent. "Thank goodness you're alright! What happened to you?"

One of the firemen tried to get him to back away in broken English, "Please, go back. We help the boy."

"I think you people have helped him enough already, just look at him! Come on Trevor, I think it's time we got away from all these damn foreigners. We'll find you an American doctor." With that he grabbed Artemis's arm and dragged him through the crowd despite the protests of its members and they were soon on the road again, rapidly returning to the airport.

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The phone rang once and only once before Artemis picked up. Holly was glad to see her favorite mud-boy again even though he seemed to have been beaten to a pulp.

Wait…what?

"What happened to you Fowl? Did one of your enemies finally catch up with you?" Sometimes Holly just radiated with concern. This was not one of those times.

Artemis quirked an eyebrow, "It's a pleasure to see you as well Holly. No, I haven't been beaten, this is merely some costume make-up which was necessary for a recent, eh, performance of mine."

"Nothing criminal I hope."

Artemis paused for a moment but decided to let it pass, "To what do I owe the pleasure of this call? Have you finally gotten a case worth my looking into or are you just hoping to inform me of another lost child incident?"

Holly glared, it seemed Artemis was as charming as ever. "As a matter of fact I do have a case and it's an odd one too. A prosthetic limb manufacturer has gone missing and his daughter is paying us triple salary to find him."

Artemis leaned forward, this sounded interesting. "Tell me the specifics. I haven't much time right now but I'll do what I can."

Holly related the story given to them by Ms. Lunos about her father's disappearance. "Mulch and I spent several days checking her story and trying to find evidence and witnesses. Everything she said seemed to check out and we were trying to figure out who the elf was who had come into their shop when Foaly was finally able to meet us and look at the disk of the encoded hours.

"He had it unlocked in a few minutes but what was there has hardly shed any light on the case. The first segment with the elf and Mamilton in the back room was entirely uninformative, for the hours they were in there they were speaking with some unknown hand code. Foaly is working on decoding it as an extra favor to us." Holly paused with a brief smirk, "I think he's trying to impress Estella.

"Anyway the second encoded segment was where Mamilton was supposedly kidnapped. The amazing thing though is that he wasn't, he pulled a set-up. The video showed him putting his wife's bracelet on the floor and using a clever set of rigging to make several legs from his shop look like there were other people walking beside him as he went out his window. His daughter almost went into hysterics when she saw it, Foaly had to calm her down and take her home.

"I'm at a loss what to do now, I've never had a case this complicated before. Do you have any thoughts?"

Before responding Artemis checked their location, they would be at the airport in a few minutes. There was no time for an in-depth analysis, he would have to keep it short and have Holly call him later.

"It does indeed sound like a complex matter. You'll have to call me again later for a deeper scrutiny but for now I advise that you continue to try to find out who this elf was, Mamilton was obviously trying to run away from him or whoever he represented. As it is obvious that they knew each other already you should also look into the centaur's past. See if there are any skeletons in his closet so to speak."

Holly nodded, "Alright that sounds like a good idea. I'll call you again tonight around nine your time." She was about to say good-bye when a pang of worry set in, "You are doing alright aren't you Artemis? I know haven't been able to call you for a while and all your friends besides Butler are underground. I hope you haven't been too lonely."

Artemis blushed, he was able to deal with harsh emotions but a person having concern over him was still an idea he was adjusting to. "I'm fine, really. I made a new friend at school about a month ago, his name is Matt. I, er, I really need to go now. I'll see you at nine."

Holly got the feeling as the screen went blank that Artemis had felt he couldn't hang up fast enough. She smiled, it was good that he had a friend his own age, and a human one at that. Maybe now he would be able to open up emotionally without all the difficulties he usually put up.

She knew she'd be glad to see that happen.

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Author's Notes: Poor Artemis, nothing is ever easy for him is it? Anyway I am pleased to say that though it has taken six chapters to come about the two main characters of the Artemis Fowl series have finally spoken to each other! Not only that they've managed to connect the two plot lines, I am thrilled.

On a little side-note it seems that Foaly has reason to be happy. He gets to escort the wonderful Ms. Lunos home, though I think she might be a bit to distraught to really notice right now, the poor girl. To those who might be wondering the two centaurs will not be the main features of romance in this story, I just thought it was time Foaly got to be with _someone_.

I've only seen two stories where he has been paired off. One was with Holly, don't get me started on that, and the other was an OC centaur that I stopped reading about when I saw that she had wings. It sent my Sue-senses tingling. What possible use could a centaur have for wings? Wouldn't the extra hind weight make her sink like a stone? In order for her to be at all capable of flight her wings would have to be _huge_ and then where would she fly? She lives _underground._

Enough of that, the point is that there will be another pairing very central to the plot but it won't be appearing for a while. Feel free to guess at it.

On another note congratulations to Zirra Nova and absolute power for being the first two to review twice. By the way an interesting pattern has developed. My first chapter got one review, the second got two, the fourth got four, and the fifth got five. The third only got one but ignore that.

Anyway this took a bit more than a week but I hope you find it worth the wait. It'll probably be about the same time frame for the next chapter. Oh my carpals, I am in such pain.


	7. Facing Facts

**Chapter Seven: Facing Facts**

Had she been in a normal state of mind Estella would have been beside herself with joy. She had had a crush on Foaly ever since she had read the interview about his new wing designs in The Underground Weekly. Now he was in her house with her, trying to comfort her even, and all that was going through her mind was how to get him out so she could think.

Her father had run away.

She never would have believed it but the evidence was irrefutable. When she had seen the video she had been on the verge of hysteria, now that she had had time to calm down she still felt like she was in shock. She took a sip of the tea Foaly had given her and took some deep breaths. Now was not the time for shock. Right now was the time to think.

However thinking was something very difficult to do with someone hovering over you with a concerned expression. It seemed now would be the time to show off one of her talents besides leg building.

She looked up at Foaly with a grim, tired smile. "Thank you for everything you've done Foaly. This has been a very trying day for me and I appreciate your help, but I'm very tired now and I'd like to get some rest."

The dismissal was gentle but definite, and Foaly did have to admit she looked exhausted. "Alright, I'll get going and you go get some rest. Do you mind if I come by tomorrow?"

Estella nodded sleepily and he headed for the door. Before leaving though he turned around one last time. "Don't worry Estella, I don't know what's going on but we will find your father. Holly and Mulch are top-notch and I'll do whatever I can to help."

He had hoped his parting words would lift her spirits but her head was already down on the kitchen table. She really must have been tired to have fallen asleep so suddenly.

As soon as she heard him leave Estella was up again. Her father had always told her that she should become an actress; she had assumed it was mostly just flattery but apparently her skills were better than she had thought.

She trotted over to her father's old desk and pulled out his laptop. For the next three hours she searched through its files hoping to find some clue as to why he had left. She did have an idea, but she needed something solid to go with.

Growing up Estella had always loved her parents but she knew that there was something they were hiding. They would never talk about where they grew up or how they had met. They had also always been over-protective of her. As a foal she had never been out of her parents' sight for more than five minutes and they had always insisted that she never go out after dark.

When she had turned ten it had seemed they were finally adjusting to living in the open when her mother had died. It had been the result of a freak public transport accident but had still driven her father nearly mad with terror and grief. He had immediately arranged that they move far from their old home under Africa to be lost in the city of Haven.

There Mamilton had become even more of a recluse than ever. Estella had been put in charge of any business that involved leaving the house and store or interacting with other people. He had never explained this drastic change to her but Estella could tell that he had wanted to. There had been a million times when he had let something slip, just a little bit, and she had always been ready to pounce on it. Over the years she had pieced together all the little clues and come to a startling conclusion. She didn't have proof but if it was true then her father had a dark past indeed.

The computer search had yielded nothing, but then her father had always been so careful she hadn't really expected to find anything there. She turned it off with a sigh and began searching his other things. After what felt like a lifetime she found what she was looking for. She hadn't wanted it to be true but the proof was staring her in the face. Now that she knew the truth she was ready to take action. The first thing she had to do was make sure her detectives dropped the case immediately.

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It was now late at night at the Fowl's rented villa. Butler was standing guard outside of Artemis's room while his charge spoke with Holly. The bodyguard went over the day's adventure. It had been a good one, quickly and surely accomplished with an honorable intention behind it. Butler was actually quite proud of the recent change Artemis had made to his criminal patterns. It showed he was maturing into a thoughtful young man.

Butler smirked, he knew how much Artemis would detest being referred to as thoughtful. He would say that being thoughtful and being a criminal mastermind didn't mix. Oh well, thought Butler, one step at a time.

Just then he heard steps along the hall. He turned toward the noise and saw that Artemis Fowl senior was approaching.

"Is my son in his room Butler?"

"Yes, if you would like to talk to him I suggest you wait a bit. He's dealing with some personal business at the moment."

Mr. Fowl looked up sharply. "Butler, is Artemis up to anything I should know about?"

Butler didn't like to lie to his employer but he knew that his principle's latest ventures were far too important to him for his bodyguard to willingly compromise them. He decided to take the middle ground and avoid the question.

"He's just talking with a friend Mr. Fowl, there's no need to worry."

"A friend?" Mr. Fowl looked thoughtful, "I didn't know he had any friends. Has he been opening up at school?"

"Master Artemis has always had trouble trusting others enough to let them get close to him. But I think, though he may not have realized it, that he's let Mr. Burbenshire get under his guard. It's helped to change him for the better lately."

Mr. Fowl smiled. He had hoped something like this would happen when he had first heard that Artemis had agreed to guide the charity student. He had been worried about his son, he was fully aware of Artemis's more recent criminal ventures. He had considered putting a stop to them but they seemed to have a nobler aspect to them now. Artemis senior supposed it was a start and he couldn't really expect his son to immediately give up all the allure he knew crime had.

He had considered dabbling in it again himself several times now. Whenever he had such urges he had only to look down at his new leg and the desire would disappear. Crime had already cost him too much. As he walked away from Butler Mr. Fowl made a silent prayer: that Artemis would leave his current path before it cost him dearly, perhaps even more dearly than a leg.

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Artemis yawned slightly; no matter how many improvements were made to the airlines they always seemed to make him tired and cranky. He was glad to be getting back to school. He had had a good time with his parents but they had insisted that he be back before Monday and so he had taken an early flight and was just arriving back as dusk settled.

He ran a quick mental check list to wake himself up as he trudged up the front steps. The airlines had him registered on the flight his parents thought he had taken to get to France, no evidence there; the painting was now safely on its way back to Boston, the post mark would make it seem as if it had been sent from central Germany and thus would not be traced to him, he had—

Suddenly he was literally torn from his thoughts as Butler picked him up and hid him behind himself. This action could only mean that his bodyguard sensed some sort of danger, Artemis quickly looked around for the threat.

"I—I am sorry," stammered a small voice, "I did not mean to alarm you."

It sounded like the voice of a young girl. The girl was speaking in Russian but it was obvious from her accent that it was not her native language. Artemis moved from behind Butler to take a look.

The girl appeared to be about his age. She was standing behind the bushes that stood beside the school's entrance and it was clear she had been waiting for him. Because of her small stature and large brown eyes Artemis felt she bore a slight resemblance to a mouse.

A Japanese mouse apparently, he thought taking in the girl's face and the kimono she was wearing, but that doesn't explain what she is doing here nor what she wants with me. It was clear that direct means would be the best.

"May I help you?" he asked, flaunting his perfect Russian.

"Yes," replied the girl, "I am very sorry to have to approach you like this Fowl-san but I wanted to make sure you got my message. Since I did not know if you could speak Japanese and I cannot speak English I knew I would have to speak with you in Russian. Because of this I could not write to you, I can write no language but my own, and of course I couldn't call you because someone else might have interrupted. So I knew I had to meet with you in person which I am, of course, doing right now and—."

Artemis held up a hand and rubbed his temple. The girl's babbling was starting to annoy him. "My time is precious miss, and while I am sure you could entertain me for hours with this rant of how you can and can not communicate would you kindly get to the point?"

The girl blushed. "Of course, I am sorry. My name is Kagawa Tomoe, I mean Tomoe Kagawa, and I would like your help with a certain problem I have. This is not the place to discuss it but it requires your particular, ah, talents. Can you meet with me some other time to discuss it?"

Artemis looked Kagawa-san carefully. She seemed to be a normal Japanese girl, a bit traditional maybe but the kimono might have been just a respectful gesture on her part, but if she was normal how did she know about his criminal skills? He knew he needed to investigate this further.

"Very well, next Saturday I will meet with you. Wait outside this school's gates at 3 o'clock and Butler will pick you up and take you somewhere where we may speak. If you can try to wear something less conspicuous, kimonos tend to attract too much attention around here."

Kagawa-san looked positively jubilant at hearing Artemis's agreement to her request. She hastily agreed to the conditions, bowed deeply, and ran off.

Butler turned to his charge, "Do you trust her?"

"She's seems honest enough but I'm going to look into her history before our meeting, at the least she'll need to be watched."

Butler nodded. "Understood."

Artemis pushed the matter to the back of his mind for the moment, he was feeling more exhausted by the moment. He waved good-bye to Butler, who was still not allowed in the school, and made his way back to his room.

Once there he could have sworn there was never a more inviting bed than the one that lay before him. He flopped down into it and marveled at its shear comfort. Maybe he would just lay there forever.

Thump.

Completely ignoring the world around him.

Thump.

He could attain new levels of peace and calm.

THUMP!

Or maybe he would if his bloody neighbor would shut up! Now that his dream-like mood had been utterly spoiled Artemis no longer felt like sleeping. Instead he decided to go next door and put a stop to the incessant thumping.

Once in the hall he realized that the noise was coming from Matt's room. It sounded like there was a bit of a fight occurring. Tentatively Artemis knocked on the door. For a moment there was dead silence and then there was the sound of further scuffling. He was about to knock again when the door opened.

To Artemis's surprise it wasn't opened by Matt but by an older boy whom he had never seen before. He was a tall, lean fellow with sandy hair; though his eyes were partially obscured by the sheen of his glasses there seemed to be a mischievous gleam in them. This was all Artemis had time to take in before he was dragged into Matt's room head-first, soon finding himself sprawled out on the floor.

"Well, well, well," said the strange boy with a slightly ominous air, "you must be the Artemis Fowl II I've heard so much about. It's so nice to meet you after all this time."

"Leave him alone Theo!" Artemis turned around. Matt was sitting up behind his bed looking a little frazzled but otherwise fine. Just what was going on here?

"I suppose my greeting was a bit coarse. What do you say we start over Artemis?" He held out his hand and Artemis used it to get up while he tried to find his voice again.

Finally, after a few deep breaths, he managed to speak as though nothing had happened. "Who is this, Matt?"

Matt opened his mouth to answer but the strange boy cut him off. "I'm terribly sorry about that. Allow me to introduce myself. I am known by many names: in my homeland I am called The Wise One, on the battlefield I am The Great Avenger, and to a select few I am Snooky but you may know me as Theodore Anton Burbenshire the first."

Matt shook his head sadly. "This is my brother Theodore. We call him Theo. He's a prat."

Theo raised an eyebrow. "I'm a prat am I? My dear Matthew you really shouldn't be throwing insults at someone in my position. You should know it will come back to haunt you."

Matt paled suddenly, "You wouldn't."

Theo smirked. "I'm surprised at you Matt. Weren't you the one who coined the phrase "A pig may fly if you throw it and hell may freeze over if they don't pay their heating costs, but the day someone can predict what Theo Burbenshire will do is the day the word impossible ceases to exist"?"

There was then a long moment of silence while Matt made several faces which reminded Artemis of an odd gasping fish he had seen once. Finally Matt hung his head in defeat and turned back to Artemis. He then began speaking in a dull monotone.

"My brother is a very kind, thoughtful individual whom I largely consider to be one of the finest examples of humanity I have ever had the honor to know. They will one day erect a monument in dedication to his glory in our town square. Also, Toad Ball is not the most pathetic idea to have ever been conceived, it is the result of many great minds coming together to form a fountain of originality and entertainment which must not be mocked by myself or any other whom can not comprehend its greatness."

The whole speech sounded like it had been memorized long ago and spoken many times. Perhaps Theodore had forced it upon his brother as part of some blackmail, but what did Matt have to hide?

Artemis was forever a fan of directness so he turned back to Theodore. "Blackmailing is a very bad thing to do, especially to one's brother," Artemis gave his patented vampire grin. "What are you trying to hold over him?"

Theodore burst out laughing, "My brother is trying turning over a new leaf here Artemis, let's just saying he's a bit embarrassed about his past."

"And it's nothing you need to know about!" Matt was now beet red, reminding Artemis of Root.

The boy genius was now quite enjoying himself; for once he had the upper hand and, in an unusual streak of childishness, was prepared to milk it for all it was worth.

"Oh, but I'm quite curious," he said with a grin. "Theo please tell me, what is it that my dear friend seeks to hide from me?"

Theo returned the smile; clearly he was enjoying tormenting Matt as well. "Well, it's sad to say but Matthew was always a bit confused growing up. He always preferred dolls to action figures and was frequently known to raid Mum's closet to play dress up." Theo dodged an attack from Matt. "I think back then he never wanted to be a boy. He certainly never acted like it; he even grew his hair out. It caused me such shame. Despite my best efforts he remained that way until he was nearly ten. Even now if you look at pictures from that time you would swear that really _was_ a girl--."

Matt's pounce hit home with fierce precision and he soon had his brother pinned to the floor. "If I hear on more word from you," he growled, "I'll shove one of your bloody Toad balls so far up your arse they'll have to use the Heimlich to keep you from choking on it!"

Artemis chuckled, as amusing as this scene was he supposed he should give them both a break. He decided now would be a good time to change the subject. "What exactly is "Toad Ball" pray tell?"

Immediately Theo began to glow. "I am thrilled that you asked that Artemis! Toad Ball is the creation of yours truly and will soon be considered the greatest thing to happen to sports since the Olympics. You've probably not heard of it here yet but it's beginning to get quite a following over in mother England. You see the rules are--."

He stopped dead after glancing at his brother. "What's bothering you now Matt?"

Indeed Matt did look decidedly irritated. "As much as I love hearing account after account of how this game works it's now almost ten and we have classes tomorrow. I think it's time you left."

Theo looked puzzled for a moment and then smiled knowingly. "Alright, I suppose it is time I left. I'll be back again to visit soon though. We're trying to expand into Ireland this year so I'll be spending a lot of time around here. I'll be sure to send you two tickets to our first game here."

"I'd like that," said Matt sounding a bit calmer now. "I look forward to seeing you."

Theo then waved good-bye and left with a dramatic flourish. The room suddenly seemed strangely empty without him.

Artemis leaned toward Matt who was looking extremely tired. "So, did you really wear dresses until you were ten?"

And with that comment any hope either had had for sleep that night evaporated and until it was nearly dawn one could have sworn they both just two normal teenage boys having fun. But, of course, neither of them were.

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A/N: My god it's late. I'm so tired now but I just couldn't leave this scene halfway done. I have to say I love Theodore and I love how he interacts with Matt. What a crazy household that must have been.

Also introduced this chapter is the mysterious Tomoe. (I can be that familiar with her because she is my creation.) I can't say much about her now but I think she'll prove interesting.

To those who may be constantly anxious about when I will update I have good news: I have set up a livejournal account. On my profile page it's my homepage and it somehow got set up as a link twice in my profile.

In this account I frequently discuss how my current chapter is progressing and it should give you a better idea of how much longer I'll be. Be sure to leave comments there, I'd love to communicate with my readers. If I'm having a dilemma I'll probably post it there and you can help with your opinions.

I hope you've enjoyed the chapter. I'm going on a trip today so the next one won't be up for a bit more than a week. I'll try to make it worth the wait.


	8. Curious

**Chapter Eight: Curious**

Because of all his genius schemes and deep thoughts Artemis sometimes forgot that he did not excel at everything. Today Matt was painfully reminding him of that fact. He had somehow convinced the young genius to go into town and visit the local arcade for a few hours. By Artemis's watch they had now been there for 120 minutes and Matt had now managed to thoroughly embarrass him in 15 different games, the latest of which was some sort of dance game involving stepping on arrows as they appeared on the screen. The game was annoyingly simple which was why it was all the more irritating that he had failed miserably at it.

Artemis gasped for breath as he watched Matt finish the game on his own with lightning speed. It wasn't fair, Artemis knew he was proficient at several forms of ballroom dancing but those arrows were moving in patterns far too fast for him. He looked at his watch, it was almost time for him to meet Kagawa-san.

The week had gone by quickly, he had spent most of Monday sleeping in the library after his full night of laughing and mock fighting with Matt and most of the rest of the week convincing his teachers that he didn't have a sleeping disorder. This weekend he had been determined to spend time with his friend while it was still a reasonable hour and then go take care of business with his new Japanese acquaintance.

With a resounding stomp Matt finished his final song and went over to Artemis. "Would you like to try another game now? I'm sure we could find something your good at _eventually._"

Artemis scowled, "I hardly consider being unable to properly stomp on arrows or shoot zombies or do whatever else these ridiculous games require an inadequacy. I can't understand why you seem so obsessive about them."

"First of all I'm not obsessed and secondly it's not about arrow stomping, it's about having fun," Matt smiled slightly condescendingly. "In all honesty Arty you are horrible at having fun."

"What?" Artemis looked at him incredulously but then shook his head. It wasn't worth getting into a debate over and he knew that no matter how many good points he made Matt would continue to stubbornly hold on to his view until Artemis gave up.

Matt caught Artemis's look and they made a silent mutual agreement to drop the subject. "So, what would you like to do then?"

Artemis glanced at his watch again, "I have to get going now. There's someone I'm supposed to meet soon."

Artemis headed toward the door with a quick good-bye and left Matt swirling with surprise, unanswered questions, his natural curiosity, and his standard disregard for the respect of other people's privacy. Artemis should have known this to be a bad idea by now. As it was Matt only had the patience to wait 45 seconds before he began to sneak after his friend with all the stealth a standard, untrained, sixteen-year-old could manage while secretly pretending to be a ninja. Artemis, however, was sadly too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice this development and the English boy's rather obvious tailing was left unchecked.

Matt's mind awash with questions. Who was it that Artemis needed to meet? He would have told Matt if it was a matter of no consequence like his parents were visiting so what was he trying to hide? Did Artemis Fowl have some important secret he didn't want Matt to know about?

He knew the only way to get the answers he sought was to see what this meeting was all about. It wasn't spying really, Matt rationalized, he was looking out for his friend's safety, after all someone had already tried to kidnap Artemis. If he was involved in something that might put him in that danger again it was Matt's duty to try and protect him.

Because, of course, a sixteen-year-old boy with no training could protect a millionaire's son much better than a forty-something-year-old, fully-trained, professional bodyguard.

Matt tried to ignore that thought as he saw Artemis take a seat outside a local café.

Kagawa-san was already waiting with Butler when Artemis arrived. It seemed that Butler had managed to bring her without any difficulty but she still looked exceedingly nervous.

Artemis was pleased to see that she had managed to get some western clothes during their week apart, now the only reason people would have to stare at them would be the fact that they were an Irish boy and a Japanese girl speaking Russian to each other, though in perfectly normal clothes.

They had now been sitting opposite each other for five minutes without saying a word. Artemis decided to break the silence, "Well?"

Kagawa-san's eyes widened in their typical mouse-like fashion. She was really a very simple girl; it was almost pathetic how easily she was intimidated by such a straightforward question.

"I am sorry. What do you mean by well?"

Artemis sighed, she was a dense little thing but at least it meant she wasn't a threat. "You told me you had a problem which I was needed to solve. Now we are away from my school and I have been waiting for the last five minutes for you to tell me what it is."

"But," Kagawa-san looked around the café with a flustered expression, "we are still in such an open place, it can not be safe here either, can it?"

Artemis rubbed his forehead, deciphering this girl's strange accent gave him a headache. As a matter of fact everything about her was giving him a headache at the moment.

"I never wanted to meet you in a private setting, despite your seemingly innocent appearance it might have been a trap. I needed a public location to ensure my own safety, I'm sure you'll agree that your first appearance before me was of a very suspicious nature. I only put our meeting off a week so that I would have time to find out who you are. As for our privacy you needn't worry, few here speak Russian and Butler is on the look out for anyone who might be after you."

Kagawa-san looked stunned for a moment. "I see what I heard about your intelligence is true. I am very impressed. However, please forgive me for delaying my story for a few more moments, I have already told you my name, what do you mean by 'find out who I am'?"

"I've been researching you through your government and school records. Over the past week I have learned that you are Tomoe Kagawa, aged fourteen, daughter of a retired Russian solider and a Japanese housewife (that explains your language knowledge), an average student living in Osaka with no family history of criminal connections or scandal, I could go on and on but I think you get the point. All that I need to now is why such an average girl knows about me and has insisted on flying all the way to Ireland to contact me. Now would you be so kind as to enlighten me?"

Kagawa-san looked as if she wanted to ask more questions but she seemed to understand that Artemis's patience was running thin so she bowed her head and began.

"These records that you have researched can be misleading," she said nervously. "My father did not choose to leave the Russian army; he was forced to leave because an injury in his leg kept him from fighting. He hated to go though, he was fanatically devoted to his country. His superiors sympathized and, as a parting gift, sent him on a trip to Japan. While he was there he met and fell in love with my mother. She refused to leave her homeland so Father agreed to move to Japan so they could be married.

"It was not a choice he made lightly however. He was very torn for a long time and spoke to his former role-models from the army for advice. They told him that leaving Russia did not mean he loved it any less and that he might still serve his country over-seas. This convinced him and he spent many happy years with my mother while still openly supporting Russia.

"Sadly this support has recently led to sinister events. A group of fanatic Japanese nationalists took my mother and swore they would kill her if my father did not kill himself and his 'disgraceful half-breed daughter' within a month's time. Immediately Father went to the police with this news but they can find no trace of the group or my mother. He then sent me to Russia to look for help. He could not go himself because he knew he was being watched, it was hard enough to get me out unnoticed.

"Once there I spoke with Father's old army friends to see if they had any connections that could help us. They all told me they could not interfere with Japanese internal affairs but one had a slightly dark past and was able to put me in contact with the Russian mafia.

"It was very terrifying to speak with them but they also refused to help me. They were afraid I was trying to trick them into the police's hands because of my father's closeness to the military. I was lucky they decided not to kill me.

"Several days later I was still in Russia and had almost given up hope when one of the men from the mafia contacted me. He told me about you and said that if anyone could help me you could. So I have worked very hard to come here despite my language barriers to beg you to help me."

Kagawa-san began to cry, "Please Fowl-san, do not let my parents die. I know you can help me and I have no where left to turn."

Had the situation had a lighter tone Artemis would have been struck by how similar the scene was to the beginning of a soap opera or some cheap action-movie, as it was he only had time to think that his conscience could only allow him one course of action.

He looked at Butler who had been stone silent the whole time. He seemed to be staring into the distance but upon catching his employer's eye he gave a sympathetic nod and left them alone.

Kagawa-san was still crying so Artemis awkwardly patted her shoulder to help her calm down. "You don't have to worry anymore Kagawa-san. I'll help you and I'll make sure your parents are safe."

Kagawa-san broke into a wide grin and hugged him tightly. "Thank you so very, very much. There are only two weeks left until the deadline and I was so very worried that I would run out of time!"

Artemis pushed her away, blushing slightly, and straightened out his tie. "Very well, I will get to work immediately. I was able to find the inn you are staying at, you shouldn't register under your real name by the way, and I will contact you when I know where to find your mother, until then farewell Kagawa-san."

Kagawa-san smiled again. "Thank you again Fowl-san. You do not know how happy I am! Please, call me Tomoe from now on."

Artemis blushed again knowing how familiar that would be of him in Japanese culture but nodded anyway. "Very well, farewell Tomoe."

She was practically skipping as she went off.

Artemis leaned back and sighed. Really, the girl's problems were so dramatic it was almost ridiculous. He might have scoffed at it but he knew exactly what she must be feeling, after all he had had to save his own father from a very similar situation.

"I think that went rather well, don't you Butler?" He needed to fill the silence, it was painful to think of Tomoe's mother and even Estella's father. It was just another example of the injustices so-called intelligent creatures could inflict upon one another. The world was missing far too many lost parents.

"It went as well as could be expected sir," Butler still seemed to be looking into the distance. "Excuse me for a moment."

He proceeded to walk around to the bushes on the side of the café.

"Is something wrong?" asked Artemis curiously.

"Not exactly," replied Butler as he reached over the bushes, "but I believe we have an eavesdropper in our midst." Suddenly the manservant pulled up a boy who had been hiding behind the greenery. Artemis quickly recognized Matt and fixed him with a glare.

"What do you think you're doing here?" he asked icily.

Matt looked sheepish but held eye contact. "Well, I guess my curiosity got the better of me. It just seemed so mysterious that you were meeting someone and you didn't even say who it was. I mean you never go to see anyone except me or your parents, you can't blame me for wondering."

Artemis rubbed his forehead irritably. He should have known this would happen when he left the arcade so suddenly, Matt was always overly curious about everything. "No I don't blame you for wondering. I blame you for sneaking after me and then spying on me while I met with my acquaintance. What you did was down-right disgraceful."

Matt flushed with shame as Artemis pierced him with another harsh glare. He looked down at his shoes and mumbled. "I'm sorry Arty. I knew I shouldn't have been there as soon as I saw what was going on. I just couldn't leave then or you would have seen me. I won't do it again." He looked up with a pleading look on his face. "It's not like I heard what you were saying anyway. Well, I heard it but I can't understand German or Russian or whatever language you were speaking."

Artemis relaxed, he had almost forgotten that he and Tomoe hadn't been speaking English. At least now Matt wouldn't begin to ask him things like how the Russian mafia knew about him. But what did he think the meeting had been about? He seemed to have a pretty definite idea.

"So," Matt asked nervously, "are we still friends?"

Artemis nodded absently and Matt breathed a sigh of relief. They both headed to the car that Butler had driven Tomoe in and began the drive back to school.

Neither seemed to have anything to say but the silence was obviously irritating Matt. He kept tapping his fingers nervously and glancing around the car.

"She was pretty cute you know."

Artemis looked at Matt questioningly.

"Your girlfriend," Matt explained, "I thought she was pretty cute. She also seems to really like you Artemis, you're quite lucky to have a catch like that." He smiled brightly.

Artemis stared dumbfounded. At the front of the car he could almost have sworn he heard Butler snort but when he looked toward the driver's seat the manservant was as emotionless as ever.

Matt looked slightly worried, "Are you alright Arty? Your face hasn't moved for the last thirty seconds."

Artemis looked away, slightly embarrassed to have been caught speechless. "It's… nothing. Let's just not bring this up again please."

He glanced at Matt but he could only stand that one glance. His friend was now looking at him with an unbearable smirk. Artemis groaned inwardly.

He almost would have preferred the Russian mafia questions.

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It was pathetic. Centuries' worth of advanced technology of at her fingertips filled with near-infinite amounts of information and she couldn't find out anything about a single centaur.

Holly sighed as she closed yet another database. Maybe she just wasn't cut out for the detective business. Recon had never required this much deep thought and research, it had been all about quick-thinking and quicker action. Even when she had had to escape from Artemis's manor it had been a flash of insight not hours of slogging through online libraries and trying to decode mysterious hand signals that had saved her skin.

It didn't help that her client was being completely unhelpful. Holly had been trying to contact Estella for a week now but no one seemed able to reach her except Foaly on occasion and he hadn't been very willing to question her. Everyone who had seen her recently had done so at unusual hours and even Foaly had to admit that she seemed to be up to something. Whenever anyone spoke to Estella these days she seemed dazed and would jump at any excuse to leave the person right away.

However she wasn't the only one acting oddly. Mulch had popping in and out of their office at random intervals all week. He never stayed for more than a few moments; he would burst in without a word, check a map or something, eat whatever was in the fridge and be off again. Holly didn't know what he was up to but she had finally managed to pin him down just long enough to agree to confronting their client together.

All the computers in Haven might not have any information on Mamilton Lunos but his daughter would have to.

Holly heard a familiar clomping behind her and was happy to see that Foaly had arrived.

"Have you had any luck?" they asked in unison.

Holly smiled and answered first. "No, I can't find anything about this Mamilton guy. I've been searching for a week now and I can't even find proof that he exists. There's just nothing."

Foaly looked surprised, "That can't be right, I could understand some missing records from when he lived under Africa, they don't enforce record-taking very much there, but he's lived in Haven for years now. Haven't you found anything about when he moved here? Or licensing records for his business?"

Holly shook her head. "That's what's so bizarre. While he's been here he's been avoiding paperwork like the plague. I spoke with the former owner of his home, she says that she never met Mamilton in person, he only wrote to her and mailed her the money for the house completely in cash. As a matter of fact no one I've spoken to besides Estella has even seen him. She wasn't kidding when she said he was a recluse. I'm beginning to wonder if it's a ghost we're trying to find."

"You don't have to worry about that, we've seen him on the security tapes." Foaly sighed, he was looking extremely tired. "I still haven't been able to decode the sign language that Mamilton and that mystery elf used when they were in the back room. I had hoped to be able to figure it out based on some known sign language but it seems to be completely original. I have no basis to solve it from."

Holly patted his shoulder sympathetically. She had heard from some of her friends on the force that Foaly had been having a hard time with the new commander. With that in addition to his normal work-load at the station and all the help he was giving her the centaur was starting to fall apart a bit. Holly wanted to tell him to stop worrying about her problems but she knew she couldn't solve the case without his help and that he wouldn't do it anyway. The lengths to which Foaly would go for his friends were actually rather sweet. She decided to change the subject and try to cheer him up a bit.

"So, how've things been going with Estella?"

Foaly blushed, "Well, I, um, have been seeing her whenever I get some spare time. Of course she is still in a bit of a daze over this whole thing with her father but she seems glad to see me. I think this whole case is hitting her extra hard lately though. She seems to be more depressed every time I see her."

"That's why we're all going to solve this case as soon as possible. But in the meantime," Holly gave the centaur an affectionate nudge, "I'm sure she'd appreciate a shoulder to cry on."

Foaly's blush deepened but he smiled a little.

Just then they heard a slight rumbling beneath them. They stepped back just as a small hole opened in the floor and a figure stepped out of it.

"Mulch!" cried Holly, "What are you doing tunneling under the office for? We don't have the money to get that hole sealed."

"My tunnels are self-filling remember?" Mulch nodded toward the hole which was indeed now filled as he buttoned his bum flap. "Besides we're about to have a dramatic encounter, I needed a dramatic entrance."

Holly rolled her eyes but decided not to comment. She turned back to Foaly, "We have to talk to Estella now, we want to see if there's anything she might've forgotten to tell us about her father. We think it might give us a new lead."

Foaly nodded and yawned, "I'd offer to go with you but even I have to admit that I need to get some sleep. Good luck you two."

And with that they were off.

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A/N: I had intended to make this chapter longer but then I realized that had been almost two weeks since my last update so I'm moving the rest of Holly's segment to the beginning of chapter nine.

I hope this chapter has been worth the wait. Tomoe's segment took forever to get through. Is there nothing I can write about besides kidnapped parents? I feel like such cheese.

On a quick note I would also like to once again thank my two most loyal reviewers Zirra Nova and absolute power. My story would be lost without you. BTW I've mentioned absolute power in my livejournal if you've been keeping up. Does anyone bother to read that? Anyway I'll try to update as soon as possible, hopefully within a week or so. Bye!


	9. Suspicion Old and New

**Chapter Nine: Suspicion Old and New**

Holly and Mulch got to Estella's house twenty minutes later thanks to Haven's traffic. Across the street from her home there was a shabby shuttle stop with a scruffy looking gnome waiting outside it. Holly quickly went over to him.

"Is she still at home?" she asked.

The gnome nodded, "She had gone out a few hours ago but she's back now. She was limping on one of her back legs though, looks like wherever she went wasn't very family friendly."

Holly thanked him, gave him some money for his trouble, and rejoined Mulch to cross the road to Estella's house.

Mulch looked at his fellow detective with mild amusement, "You had our _client watched_?"

Holly shrugged, "I just wanted to make sure she didn't try to elude us. She has been acting strangely lately. I think she might have found out something that's scared her away from trusting us."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, maybe that mysterious elf came back and threatened her. Anyway that's what we're here to find out." Mulch shook his head but Holly didn't seem to notice as she knocked on the door.

When no one answered Holly knocked again to no response. She turned back toward her colleague to figure out what to do but found only a hole in the ground where he had been. She shook her head as she heard a surprised scream inside and a moment later the dwarf opened the door from the inside with a wide grin.

"Why Detective Short, what a surprise!" Holly hit him on the head.

"Shut up convict, you're not supposed to be breaking and entering anymore, remember?"

Mulch rubbed his head crossly, "It got the job done didn't it? Besides it wasn't like _she_ was going to let us in." He jerked his thumb at Estella who was still looking fairly shocked and had edged herself into a corner.

Holly sighed, it seemed the centaur had indeed been avoiding them. "I'm sorry for my partner's intrusion Ms. Lunos, but it's very important that we speak to you and you've been a bit hard to get a hold of lately. Now if you'll just answer some questions—."

"No."

The word cut across the room like a knife. Holly stared at Estella and the centaur took a deep breath, "I've never been very good at dealing with people I've hired for a job so I've been avoiding you and trying to post-pone this but I've decided to take you off the case. It's nothing personal but I want to deal with my father's disappearance on my own now. Quite frankly I don't think you're very good detectives, maybe if you learn from smaller cases you can build your skill but right now I can't afford to trust you with my father's well-being anymore. I'll still pay you in full of course but—."

Holly slammed her fist down on the nearest table. She wouldn't have liked to admit it but she was holding back a few tears, Estella's speech had brought all of Holly's doubts back to the surface so fast they felt like a slap on the face. "Don't insult us like that Estella. I can understand if you don't think we have the skills needed for this job, I've been wondering if I have what it takes myself, but don't try and pay us off for a job we didn't do."

"Whoa, don't go putting words in other peoples' mouths Holly!" cried Mulch. "I'm still going to be earning my half of the salary."

Estella looked confused, "No, I've fired you, you can't—."

"There are three things I've come to learn in my life about centaurs Ms. Lunos," continued Mulch. "They are smart, paranoid, and very protective of those they care about. I think you are no exception." He looked Estella in the eye. "Tell me, when you first came to us with this case you said it was 'vital that word of your problem not leak out.' Why exactly was that? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to the police and have more people investigating your father's disappearance? And why, when you could have chosen any agency under the earth and paid them well did you decide to take your case to the newest and most inexperienced set of detectives you could find?"

Estella had turned deathly pale but said nothing so Mulch continued, "I've been listening to you very closely for awhile now. You choose your words very carefully, you told us your father never _said_ anything about his past but you didn't say anything about what you thought he might have done, any centaur would have at least gotten an idea; and just now you said you were firing us because you couldn't trust us anymore with your father's well-being. You didn't say that because you're worried about us not finding him, you're worried that we'll find out something about him that'll put him in more danger than he's in now. There's no point in hiding it anymore, it's time to tell the truth." Mulch leaned back smugly.

Holly stared at him with astonishment and new-found respect, "How did you figure all that out? Have you been talking to Artemis behind my back?"

"Nah, I've just spent a lot of time around criminals, it's a good way to learn when someone has something to hide."

The sound of sobbing quickly returned them both to the matter at hand. Estella had buried her head in her arms and was bawling on top of her coffee table. The detectives glanced at each other awkwardly and then Holly moved to her and offered a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

"It's all right," she said soothingly, "I told you, discretion is our middle name, whatever your father may have done it's long behind him now. I swear that no matter what, we won't turn him over to the police, we just want to help you find him and make sure he's safe."

Through her tears Estella looked Holly straight in the eye. The centaur girl looked more serious and determined than the elf could ever recall seeing her. "You absolutely swear?"

Holly returned the gaze fully and nodded with as much conviction as she could muster.

Estella turned toward Mulch with an equally piercing glare, "And you?"

He waved his hands in front of him, "Hey you don't have to worry about me, I'd never rat you out!"

That didn't seem to be enough for her and the dwarf scooted back a bit as she took a threatening step forward, "Do you swear it?"

Mulch quivered slightly, an enraged centaur could be a very scary thing. "Yes, yes, I swear, I swear, just stop glaring at me like that!" Satisfied Estella walked back to Holly.

"Mr. Diggums was right about my having formed an idea of my father's past. He never actually told me what had happened but I did get an idea. About a week ago I started going through Father's old things." Estella indicated for them to follow her and they soon found themselves in Mamilton's bedroom.

Estella moved next to an old dresser. She started to push it but it wouldn't budge. Finally she sighed, reared up on her hind legs and kicked the dresser on its side. She then collapsed on the floor, it seemed her hind leg was indeed hurt and the strain she had put on it just then was more than she could handle. Holly helped her up and got her resting on the bed. Meanwhile Mulch was looking at the wall behind where the dresser had been.

"Hey!" he cried. "There's nothing here!"

Estella didn't answer for a moment as she rubbed her sore leg but then returned to the matter at hand. "It's not the wall, it's the dresser. After going through Father's things and finding nothing I lost my head a bit and toppled some furniture. When I was cleaning later I noticed what was on the bottom of this thing and it confirmed everything I had feared."

Holly and Mulch exchanged looks and went to see what Estella was talking about. Carved into the dresser's bottom was a picture of a pair of fairy wings and a crown overlapping the Earth. The two detectives gasped in unison.

Mulch trembled slightly as he touched the design, "This is way deeper than I thought."

Holly swirled around and stared at Estella, "Your father was a Jalinger?"

Estella nodded solemnly.

The faerie people had lived underground for centuries but there had once been a time when they had lived in the open air with humans. When the humans became more advanced and started to endanger the faeries they decided to escape and start a civilization below the Earth's surface where they would live in secret. However, this was not a move agreed upon by all. There had been many in favor of having a full-out war with the humans until they could reclaim the land that was rightfully theirs. The foremost advocate of this stance had been a philosopher named Jalin.

Jalin had lead many protests while the faeries moved below ground, many involving violence against the mud men but in the end he lacked enough support to complete his goal and died at his act of rebellion.

Years later more faeries began to feel restless underground and started thinking that the move had been a bad idea. A new group formed calling themselves the Jalingers, named after their idol, and decided to finish what Jalin had started. It had been decades before anyone outside the group had even known it existed, its leaders had known their plans would not immediately gain wide-spread support and so they had been more cunning.

They had infiltrated the ranks of many government groups including the LEP and the council slowly and stealthily so that no one would notice the conspiracy. They gained the support of the goblins and many others who felt they had no place in society and still the world had no idea of their existence.

Finally the Jalingers decided the time was right and staged their revolution. What resulted was the worst blood-bath the faeries had ever had. The Jalingers revealed few of their members out right but they did reveal the council members they had and with them turned the government into a dictatorship. The people lived in fear throughout the world not knowing who was a friend and who was an enemy among them. For several years this raged on as the Jalingers killed anyone who opposed them. Finally they had been ready to take the war to Earth's surface. In a last-ditch effort to stop them a team of rebels had infiltrated their headquarters and managed to, with many casualties, capture the group's two leaders.

Without their leaders guiding them the Jalingers soon fell apart and the council was restored. All this had happened well before the times of Holly and Mulch but it had left a deep scar on all the faerie people akin to the way most humans felt about their second world war.

The symbol upon the dresser had been the symbol of the Jalingers representing their ultimate goal of regaining the Earth. Holly's head spun realizing what this all meant. Mamilton had been a Jalinger. He had been in hiding for most of his life even though the Jalingers were no longer hunted. A mysterious elf from his past had spoken to him with an unknown sign language. Their conversation had compelled Mamilton to fake his own kidnapping and run away.

These things came together into one startling picture: the Jalingers were active again.

Holly put her hand over her mouth and shuddered. Suddenly she felt a hand on her back and looked up to see Estella looking at her worriedly. "I know this is all very startling," she said, "but you still can't tell anyone about this."

"Are you crazy?" shouted Holly. "This isn't about your father anymore, the People are in danger! I need to tell the LEP, the Council!"

Estella slapped Holly lightly across the cheek and looked her in the eye, "You're supposed to be a detective D'Arvit, why don't you try and think about this for a minute? I agree that a Jalinger revival is a greater crisis than whatever may have happened to my father but you can't just run off to the authorities with this. They'll start a wide-spread panic and probably cause massive bloodshed of possible Jalingers alone and that will make the real ones come out and fight. Do you really want to be the cause of a second full-scale Jalinger war?"

Holly looked taken aback had she been a normal elf she probably would started to break down at this point, as it was she took a deep breath and called upon all her LEP training to remain calm. "I suppose you're right, but we have to do something. I can't believe you were going to keep this from us."

"Something is exactly what I've been doing for the past week," said the centaur girl. "I've been trying to find out what they're up to now. They can't be infiltrating high ranks again, the security is too thorough now. I also think they don't have nearly as many in their ranks now, Jalinger is taboo nowadays, and not many can still be seduced by it. I haven't been able to find very much information on what they're up to now but I think they are trying to avoid another war with the People. I think this time they want to move directly to the mud men."

Mulch finally regained his voice, "But what are we going to do if we can't tell anyone about them coming back together? We don't have any source to get information from and I don't see how we could find one without the Jalingers finding out we're on their trail. Even if we do find out what their exact plans are, how are the three of us going to stop a group that dangerous?"

"Let's take this one step at a time Mulch," said Holly with her head down. She was now thinking at a feverish pace. She was certain there was something that they could do but what? That's when it hit her.

"The hand signals!" Mulch and Estella looked at her curiously. "Do you remember the hand code Mamilton and the elf were using on the recording? Foaly said he couldn't decipher it because he had no basis to work off of but now that we know where it originated maybe he can decode it!"

Mulch smiled and nodded in agreement but Estella looked nervous. When she noticed everyone looking at her she gazed down at her hooves distractedly. "Do we really have to tell Foaly? I don't think I could stand it if he found out."

Holly sighed, she should have known this would happen. She tossed her keys to Mulch and told him to wait in the car. When he was gone, looking rather glee filled at the possibility of driving, Holly turned back to her client.

"You know we're still holding true to our promise Estella. Neither of us is going to tell anyone about your father's history. It's like I said, it's far in his past and he obviously regrets it. I don't think any less of you now and neither does Mulch. Let's face it, we're just your detectives, if we can manage to still have the same respect for you I'm sure Foaly could too. He's nuts about you and has been for weeks, he wouldn't give all that up just because your father made some mistakes. I think he'd actually think it's admirable that you've gone to such lengths to protect Mamilton."

Estella was crying again but she had a look of hope in her eyes. "Do you really believe that?"

Holly patted her on the shoulder and headed toward the door. "Of course I do. Now come on, let's solve this mystery."

On another day Estella might have found this to be a rather cliché line but at that moment she was just glad she didn't have to be alone in her secret any more. She had known it was foolish to keep her knowledge of the Jalingers to her self but she hadn't known how she could trust anyone with the truth, she was glad her detectives had found her out. They really were wonderful people.

Holly watched Estella as she limped toward the shuttle and helped her into the back seat. When this was done the elf buckled herself into the driver's seat (after telling Mulch in no uncertain terms that he would never drive her anywhere again and to let her into her seat).

She felt a bit distracted now that she thought of the comfort speech she had given Estella. She had promised not to reveal Mamilton's past to any officials, it certainly was far behind him, but now she realized they didn't really know why he had left. It was possible he had just been running away from a group he had thought was long-since dead, but what if his kidnapping had been staged so that he could run back to that group?

Holly gritted her teeth; she would just have to see what this mystery wound up revealing. She would deal with any moralities or punishments later.

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Artemis knew of the importance of his task. He had been working tirelessly on it ever since it had been presented to him. He was beginning to feel overwhelmed though. He knew he was doing something very good for another person, and he was sure his father would be very proud, but there was something about the whole business that was unsettling him. He really didn't care about Tomoe, he found her annoying and slightly idiotic, he felt he was only helping her so he could pat himself on the back and convince himself that he truly was a wonderful person like so many so-called heroes of the world.

He was starting to feel sick with himself but he also knew that he couldn't just leave Tomoe's parents to die; he wouldn't be able live with that. He knew he could only finish his current task and stay away from similar ventures in the future. However this did not mean he couldn't take a break.

Artemis backed away from his computer and stretched his arms. He wished he could go for a walk but it had been hard enough to convince Matt to leave him alone while he was working in his room, if Artemis was caught outside by his British friend it would be hours before the criminal mastermind would be able to do his work again.

Instead he decided to update his diary. Once he found the disk he was surprised to see how far behind his entries had gotten. The most recent date recorded was before he had even planned to steal the Old Woman in the Wood painting. He knew this needed to be remedied, after all so much had happened since then.

With a strange feeling of peace coming over him Artemis began to type.

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Life was becoming quite dull for Matt. It had been several days since Artemis's girlfriend incident and almost nothing had happened since. Classes were starting to seriously pile up on homework and it had left the young British boy with very little spare time. It was just as well though, Artemis had been locking himself away in his room ever since his meeting with the girl, Tomoe Matt believed she was called. Now it was Thursday and young Burbenshire was thoroughly bored. He decided to go seek out new forms of entertainment.

Several hours later Matt was wishing he had just stayed bored as a punching bag whacked him upside the head and to the floor.

"That's the first time I've seen someone beaten by an inanimate object," said Butler. If he were less professional he might have burst out laughing, as it was he was able to restrain himself to a mild chuckle.

Matt had decided after the incident of his beating that he would need to learn how to defend himself. He had asked Butler several weeks ago if it would be possible for him to get some lessons from the bodyguard but of course protecting Artemis tended to be a full-time job. It was only because of his principle's self-enforced isolation that week that Butler was finally able to give Matt's request some attention.

They had now been working together for two hours. The first hour Butler had spent setting Matt straight on all the misconceptions the boy had about fighting from television and movies, specifically on things like why it was a bad idea to use macho lingo or smash any part of oneself through glass, especially since one of these things tended to lead to the other.

For the second hour Butler had considered beginning by teaching Matt about self-discipline and having inner peace but decided to see what the boy's abilities already were before starting on the these meditative subjects. It turned out to be a good idea that he did this, Matt had absolutely no idea what he was doing, he was just flailing around to the tune of some fighting song he had once heard, it was no wonder those bullies had been able to so thoroughly beat him before Butler had arrived.

After thirty minutes of coaching Matt had finally gotten the hang of administering basic punches and kicks properly and had been giving the air around him a sound beating when Butler suggested that he move on to a punching bag. They had then moved from the back field of St. Bartleby's to the town's gym and ever since Matt had been receiving a sound beating from the smug blue punching bag. Butler didn't quite understand how it was possible but every time Matt struck out the bag would be hit in such a way that it would spin violently and hit the English boy upside the head. One would think that he would have at least learned to dodge these assaults by now but the bag always seemed to catch Matt by surprise.

After a solid half-hour of putting up with the bags attacks, Butler's chuckles, and his complete inability to use the manservant's advice to fix his attacks Matt was seriously starting to wonder if this punching bag might be homophobic and if so whether forged pictures of it in compromising positions with other punching bags might make it stop beating him so. It was then that Matt knew it was time to quit for the day.

He told Butler he was leaving and would walk back to school so there was no need for the bodyguard to come with him. He half-registered the generic comment of encouragement he got in return and walked out the door. Once he was outside Matt was able to breath the fresh air and clear his head. The afternoon's activities had served as another painful reminder of his pathetic combat skills and he doubted Butler would be available again for a while to continue his lessons. Matt realized he would have to find some other source of instruction. The bookstore was bound to have some books on self-defense. That would be a good place to start at any rate. With renewed hope the young charity student ran off and was in front of Betsy's Book-Cannon within five minutes.

Matt paused outside the store for a moment to catch his breath and then began to run through the doors of what he deemed book-dom. Unfortunately as he began running through someone else was coming out and a comical collision occurred of the type usually only seen in comedy films. Once he had regained his wits Matt hastily moved to help the young girl up.

His eyes widened in surprise as he realized the girl he had crashed into was in fact the same girl Artemis had been meeting with mere days ago. Tomoe pushed his arm away and stood up by herself. As she looked herself over and straightened her clothes Matt realized he ought to apologize even if the poor girl couldn't speak any English, it was just the proper thing to do.

"I'm terribly sorry about crashing into you like that," he said nervously. "I really should have watched where I was going before barreling through the doors like that."

"There's no harm done," said the Japanese girl somewhat coldly. "Just don't let it happen again."

With that said Tomoe walked off to attend to whatever business she had but Matt stayed in place watching her for some time until she was out of sight. He was a bit shocked, not only had Tomoe spoken in perfect English to him but she had done it without a trace of an accent as if she'd been speaking the language for years. Matt hadn't been able to wheedle much out of Artemis about the girl but he had been explicitly told that she couldn't speak any English. It was possible that Artemis had lied about what languages Tomoe could speak but that seemed to be a pointless thing to do. That meant that she had lied about not being able to speak English, but why would she want to hide that from Artemis?

Matt was almost unsure if it was the same girl anymore. Her mannerisms were completely different, the girl with Artemis at the café had seemed young and emotional, and this one seemed far more mature and down-right cold. Matt shuddered to remember the hard glare he had gotten when he had first tried to help her up it had been almost cruel. He was starting to wonder if he had made some mistake but he closed his eyes and mentally compared the faces of the café girl and the girl outside the bookstore, they were definitely the same. There was something wrong about this Tomoe, but what was it?

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A/N: Finally we reach the end of the long awaited chapter nine. After this chapter things should be getting more action-packed. What is Tomoe up to? Is there really more to her than meets the eye? Is Matt just a paranoid git? All this and more in later chapters. As for Holly's storyline it seems I am doomed to forever have two unrelated storylines going at once. Well not forever they will eventually merge but it's so hard to connect them in the meantime. Anyway we finally know what's going on in Haven and what's up with Mamilton's past, I hope it's not a disappointment to you all.

In other news I was thinking the other day of a contest I might have for fans of this story but I decided to drop it when I realized no one would want to participate. The idea was asking fans how they would end the story at this point if it had to be done in five hundred words or less. I think any such entries would at least be a laugh and I would put them on my livejournal.

Speaking of my livejournal (which again can be reached through my profile page) I have recently put in a rather lengthy entry about the origins of my original characters' names. You should go see it, it's rather interesting.

Finally on a serious note I was wondering if you guys would completely kill me or think it was cliché if Artemis eventually and _slowly_ got paired with someone. It's just an idea I'm toying with for now but I would like my reader's opinions. Thank you and I'll see you soon!


	10. A Time for Action

**Chapter Ten: A Time for Action**

Artemis, the efficient worker that he was, soon found himself back at work on Tomoe's Case as he now thought of it. A bit of trouble was beginning to occur, he had searched through hours' worth of data and had manage to find out about the group that was supposedly the cause of the Kagawa family's woes but, though they had many illegal activities under way, they had made no communications about an abducted woman who was married to a former Russian solider. It was possible that the situation was only being discussed in code but none of the communications the group had made which were accessible through a computer seemed to fit the bill. In truth the group shouldn't have been capable of a crime this complicated, they seemed to be fairly small and without much power. If they had committed the kidnapping they would have certainly done a poor job of it, it was really very surprising that the local police force hadn't found anything.

Artemis rubbed his eyes, something wasn't right here but then he hadn't gotten much sleep lately, maybe an answer would be more obvious to a more energized mind. Sadly there wasn't time for rest; Artemis's deadline was dangerously close. Perhaps a visit with Tomoe would help him gather new information, she might know more than she thought she did.

Artemis considered calling Butler to accompany him but decided against it. The manservant had told him he was instructing Matt in self-defense and the young genius didn't want to interrupt. Besides, Tomoe's hotel was only a short walk away and it would be healthy for him to go out on his own every so often.

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Matt had gotten a very bad feeling after seeing Tomoe outside the bookshop. He knew that something was wrong and he had to talk to Artemis right away. He ran back to St. Bartleby's as quickly as he could and found upon arriving that Butler had also just returned.

"Why are you in such a hurry Matthew?" The bodyguard could tell that Matt was anxious about something, the boy had a worried look in his eye.

Matt was quite out of breath from his rushed journey and it was several moments before he could speak but finally he managed. "I just saw Tomoe in town but there's something wrong, I don't think she's who she says she is. I have to talk to Artemis."

Butler nodded, this sounded important. He followed Matt into the school and up to Artemis's room. After a full minute of knocking the bodyguard began to worry, it wasn't like Artemis to keep people at the door this long, even if he was busy. After trying the knob for a few seconds Matt finally gave up and turned to Butler.

"The door's locked but you're a bodyguard, you can pick it right?"

Butler nodded and then pulled something out of his breast-pocket which revealed to be a key. "I could pick this lock but that won't be necessary. As you can see Master Artemis has supplied me with a spare key."

A moment later the door was open and the two had gone inside. It was immediately obvious that the resident genius was not there. After a quick search Butler discovered a note Artemis had left him.

_Butler-_

_I have gone out to speak with Miss Tomoe regarding the matter she brought before me. It is currently just after 3 o'clock and I expect to return within an hour or two though it may be longer depending on how our discussion goes. If you need to reach me I will be at the Clamendorf Hotel, kindly do not try to reach me there unless it is absolutely necessary. Also, if Matt enquires please refrain from telling where I have gone, I don't think I could stand the remarks he would make regarding myself and my 'girlfriend.'_

_-Artemis _

Butler folded the note before informing Matt of its contents, it wouldn't do for the English boy to know everything that was in it.

"You mean he's with Tomoe right now? We have to go after him!"

"Before we do maybe you should tell me exactly what has happened. I don't want to interrupt Artemis if it's just a false alarm."

So Matt told the manservant of his brief encounter with the Japanese girl. Butler remained calm throughout most of it but his eyes widened when the boy got to the part about Tomoe speaking in fluent English.

"Are you absolutely sure this was Miss Kagawa?" Butler waited with baited breath for Matt's response. If everything he had said was true Artemis could be in great danger at that moment, that girl should have no reason for hiding her linguistic ability if she really was who she appeared to be.

Matt looked the bodyguard straight in the eye before answering, he wanted the older man to see the complete certainty he now had, "It was her, I'm sure of it."

"Then I had better get going."

Butler started to leave the room but Matt followed him. "I'm not letting you go without me."

Butler looked again at the young boy and saw the determination in his eyes. The manservant knew it would be better to just let him come along rather than argue with him since time was of the essence, he would just have to keep Matt away from the possible danger zone.

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Artemis had just been arriving at Tomoe's room when the young girl came out herself. She stared at him for several seconds in surprise before smiling in her innocent way.

"Hello Fowl-san, have you discovered where my mother is?"

Artemis sighed, more dealing with that horribly accented Russian. "I have made progress but I seem to have encountered some difficulty, I was hoping you might be able to help me."

Tomoe looked down-cast for a moment but then smiled again. "I do not know what I can do to help you but I will do my best. I was just about to go to the roof to feed the birds, may we speak there?"

Artemis looked at the girl's arms, she was holding what appeared to be a large bag of birdseed. The Irish boy raised his eyebrow quizzically and Tomoe blushed.

"I was hoping it would bring me luck in my mission."

Artemis had never really been one to believe in good luck rituals but he supposed that under the circumstances luck was essentially all the Japanese girl could wish for right now. He nodded and led Tomoe in the direction of the stairs.

The view was really quite impressive from the roof. Artemis found he could see the whole town and quite some distance beyond that, for a moment he felt like a king looking over his vast kingdom.

He hastily shook his head, this was not a time for poetic similes. He turned to Tomoe to begin questioning her but saw she was already quite absorbed in spreading birdseed on the rooftop, several pigeons had already begun to gather. Artemis sighed, he supposed it would be best if he let the girl enjoy herself for a few moments before bringing up her family again.

To pass the time he decided to gaze from the roof's edge once more, the view would be worth a second look. He checked his watch, it was about quarter to four now and, wait, what was this?

Artemis hastily removed his watch to take a closer look. Yes, there was now a deep scratch along the glass. He looked up again and wondered where he could have gotten it. Being the genius that he was the answer most likely would have come to him shortly but it was just then that the Fowl heir felt something hard come in contact with the back of his head. The last thing he saw was the majestic view he had so admired quickly disappearing behind the roof's wall as he fell to the ground.

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Foaly was indeed very concerned over Holly's case and over Estella in general but he knew it was also important that he continue to help the officers at the LEP with the regular work he put in there. Or at least he knew it was important that he at least appear to continue his regular work there. Thus that morning he had punched in and entered his fortress of technology at his regular time. He then recorded a message for anyone who might call in that he was doing very important work and wasn't to be disturbed. Once that was done he was finally able to get some sleep.

It was in fact rather unfortunate that he decided to do this, although he certainly needed the rest after all the extra work he'd been doing, for exactly forty-five minutes after he laid his head down on his desk Holly pulled up in front of the station.

It had been a while since Holly had been to her old work place, she got a feeling of nostalgia just looking at it, she missed her recon work. The elf quickly shook her head, this wasn't the time to get lost in memories, this was a time for action. Despite his pardon Mulch was still nervous about going inside a police station and elected to guard the car. Estella also decided to stay behind, partially because she was nervous about this meeting with Foaly but mostly because her injured leg was making it hurt for her to walk.

It was an unusually slow day at the station. Under normal circumstances Holly would have had no trouble going to see Foaly, she did still have many friends from her old job, however as it was no one was letting her anywhere near the tech ops office. The last time someone had interrupted the paranoid technician when he had said he wasn't to be disturbed had distracted him at a crucial moment in a very delicate test and had blown out an entire side of the station. No one had gotten hurt but the resulting chaos had allowed almost all the criminals in custody to slip away unnoticed. It had been a complete nightmare taking months to sort out and needless to say everyone was especially on guard against it happening again. The gnome on duty told the former captain all of this however Holly was not in a mood to wait.

Meanwhile Estella was becoming increasingly annoyed back outside. She respected Mulch and was grateful for the help he had given her but she had to admit that he was completely disgusting. The dwarf was currently eating his lunch to pass the time and he was doing so with less manners than a swear toad. This in addition to the increased throbbing in her leg left the centaur decidedly testy. After fifteen minutes of waiting Estella smacked her forehead. She had been so distracted by her other problems that the obvious hadn't occurred to her, Holly could heal her leg.

Muttering angrily to herself Estella climbed out of the shuttle and limped toward the station. Once inside she beheld a rather startling scene. Holly was being restrained by two gremlins while shouting at the top of her lungs that she didn't care what kind of work Foaly was doing, she needed to see him now. Whenever she took a breath the now terrified gnome, hiding behind his desk, would ask why it was so important that she couldn't wait a few hours but Holly wouldn't say and would just set the cycle off again. The scene hadn't been so violent at first of course the gnome had politely explained why no one was allowed to bother their top technician at the moment and Holly had politely explained that she didn't care what reasons the centaur had given, her business was important and if the gnome did not stop blocking her way soon he would find that her boot could cause much pain to the gnome's rather large posterior. It was at that point that the gnome had politely called security and Holly had lost her temper.

Estella quickly took all this in and determined that Holly shouting wasn't going to get them to Foaly any faster. In truth the elf's explosion shouldn't have happened, it was unnecessary and only showed just how nervous Estella's news about the Jalingers had made her. Now however it was too late for a graceful retreat, it was time to do a bit of acting. She trotted over to Holly as quickly as her wounded leg would allow her and lightly shook the elf's shoulder. This quieted everyone down for a moment as it was obvious that Estella was trying to bring reason to a battlefield which was sorely lacking in it.

"It's alright Ms. Short," she said, "I'll explain things to him."

Holly stared at her, confused for a moment. It wouldn't make sense for Estella to have suddenly decided it actually was a good idea to tell the LEP about the Jalingers. There must have been another plan brewing.

Estella turned toward the gnome who, sensing calm, was starting to creep out into the open once again. She put on a sad but controlled face and launched into her story, "You don't need to worry about the building blowing up sir. I know for a fact that Foaly is not performing any experiments as dangerous as the incident that has so scarred everyone here, you have nothing to worry about as far as that's concerned. You see I'm Foaly's beloved little sister and he always tells me about what he's working on. Normally I wouldn't want to interrupt him while he's at work but something very serious has happened in our family and he has to know about it right away,"

Estella paused for a moment looking somber. "I don't want to go into the particulars but this incident is what caused this injury on my leg, the others were far worse off." She sniffed as if holding back tears. "Ms. Short happened to be in the area and was kind enough to take me here so I could speak with my brother, won't you please let me see him?"

The gnome sniffled slightly, he had always had a soft spot for tragic stories. He signaled for the gremlins to release Holly and took Estella's hand. "Oh you poor girl," he said, "of course you can see your brother. I hope everything works out for you. Here, this is the key to the tech ops booth. It won't actually open the door for you but it will stop whatever he's doing and let him know you're here."

With that the gnome waved them off and went back to his desk feeling sad but very accomplished for having helped the young centaur girl.

Meanwhile Estella was wondering if it was possible to get sick from melodrama. Had she had time she would have liked to come up with a cover story that wasn't oozing with sap but she had known she had to act quickly or whatever she said wouldn't have seemed believable simply because it had taken her so long to say anything. At least it was over now and the plan had worked.

"Just out of curiosity Estella," asked Holly as they traveled down the hall, "how do we know we aren't about to get the building blown up?"

"Well, we don't actually know but I think Foaly knows that even he can't get away with that kind of destruction twice. I'm sure he wouldn't be doing anything that dangerous again."

"Maybe."

Estella looked up when Holly touched her arm. She had apparently been about to go the wrong way, the centaur had never been inside the LEP station before. Holly knew this but she was still smirking when she corrected Estella's path. "Come along Ms. Lunos, your beloved big brother is this way."

She would have made a snappy comeback but she knew this wasn't the time. 'Mission first, pay-back second' she chanted in her head. Soon they were outside the tech ops booth and Holly was putting in the key-card the gnome had given them.

This particular card had been created after the goblin rebellion when the LEP had briefly believed that Foaly had betrayed them all. The Council had realized how easily they could be at the genius centaur's mercy if he ever actually did turn on them. They had then ordered Foaly to create a key that could be used to access his booth in emergency situations. Of course the paranoid centaur had wanted none of this and so request turned into a series of fiery emails which had only settled when a compromise had been reached. Foaly agreed to create a key, but one that wouldn't open his door but simply disable certain systems he might be using at the time. At least that's what he told the Council, in actuality all key did was act as a sort of doorbell for him. Thus when Holly first entered the card into its slot Foaly did not awake for several minutes. He finally opened his eyes when the incessant ding-dongs began to annoy him, he looked up at his monitor to see who it was.

Estella and Holly had been waiting outside Foaly's door for ten minutes after entering the key-card and had been about to leave to seek out another technician to try and break them in when the door opened and Foaly jumped out.

"Sorry to keep you two waiting, you, ah, caught me in the middle of something." He scratched his nose nervously. "Anyway you obviously have something important to say if you came all the way here, come on in."

He then took Estella's hand and led her inside the technology fortress, Holly was forced to make the short journey unaided but it didn't exactly bother her. She also decided to give Foaly a chance to show off his inventions for a few minutes, Estella was suitably impressed, and then it was time to get down to business.

After a sound thump upon the head similar to the one he had gotten after his first meeting with Estella Foaly was ready to pay attention. The entire explanation took about half an hour to get through but when it was done the technician didn't waste any time, he immediately went to his computer and started running the security footage again, looking at it with a new intensity.

The two women were quiet for almost a full five minutes, Estella determinedly examining the floor and Holly waiting for one of the centaurs to speak to the other. At last Estella broke the silence.

"Holly, could you heal my leg? It's been hurting for a while now."

The elf blinked, surprised that she hadn't thought to do this before, and knelt by the girl's hind leg. Soon blue sparks were shooting from Holly's hand and the wound began to disappear, however the awkward silence had returned and when Holly had finished the healing Estella looked like she was in more pain than before. At least then she had had a wound on the outside. All throughout Holly's speech Foaly had not once looked at her. Estella could only assume the worst, he must hate her now that he knew what a horrible thing her father was involved in and that she had been hiding the truth for so long.

Though the rejection hurt Estella was determined to bear it with dignity, the important thing was that Foaly was still helping them and right now they all had more important things to worry about than a broken heart.

"Well it looks like our job here is done Holly," said Estella bravely. "We should probably leave Foaly to his work now; we don't want to distract him."

Holly hesitated a moment, it was true that Foaly's work right now should be top priority, if faeries attacked the mud men it would be catastrophic, but she couldn't just leave things the way they were.

"You go ahead, I'll be right there." Once Estella had left Holly turned back to the intently working technician. "So does it really bother you that much?"

Foaly didn't look away from the screen but did pause the video feed. "That the most feared faerie group in history is active again and we may be on the brink of faerie exposure on a wide scale leading to a possible war with the mud men? Yes, that bothers me a bit, why do you ask?"

"Not that Foaly, I meant the truth about Mamilton's past and how Estella's been protecting him all this time. I was just surprised that you were so cold to her just now."

This time Foaly did look away from the computer screen, his face a mixture of confusion and incredulity. "What are you talking about? Mamilton's past is long behind him now and who could blame Estella for protecting him? He is her father."

Now it was Holly's turn to be confused, "Then why didn't you say anything to her just now? Or even look at her?"

"Well, I needed to get to work on decoding the sign language didn't I? It's the best chance we have right now finding out what the Jalingers are up to." The centaur's face was full of innocence but Holly only saw it as annoying ignorance as she gave him the second whack upside the head he had earned that hour.

"You idiot!" she exclaimed. "Estella was petrified to tell you the truth, she was sure you would hate her because of it, and now you've let her walk away thinking just that!"

Foaly stared for a moment, he may have been a technological genius but as clichéd as it was he didn't know much when it came to relationships. "So, what should I do?"

Holly slapped her forehead. "Go after her! Catch her before she leaves the building and make sure she knows how you really feel." Before he had a chance to respond Holly had pushed him out the door.

Luckily for Foaly Estella hadn't gone very far, she hadn't wanted to go outside alone and had been going slowly in the hopes that Holly would soon catch up with her, that and the fact that she really wasn't eager to rejoin Mulch. Foaly caught up with her a few cubicle rows down from the tech ops booth.

"Hey!" he called out, "Wait up!"

Estella turned around, a feat rather difficult in the narrow cubicle lined aisle, and looked at him in surprise, this made the moment even more awkward for Foaly.

"I, er, just realized that you may have gotten a wrong impression just now. I wasn't talking to you a minute ago because I thought I should get right to work but, um, you might have thought I was mad at you," Foaly blushed and looked at the ground, "or something like that. But I'm not, I don't think you've done anything to be ashamed of; I'd probably have done the same thing. So just so you know I still like you. A lot."

As Foaly stood there red-faced and rambling he could only think that he was glad the staff of their current area was in a five-hour meeting just then, if word got that there was a girl he liked he would never hear the end of it. Just then however all such thoughts were driven from his head as he suddenly found himself in a tight embrace courtesy of Estella.

"Thank you," she said her head on his shoulder, "that means a lot to me."

Foaly was blushing again but now it had nothing to do with being embarrassed as he gladly returned the hug. This seemed to give Estella courage and she slowly lifted her head to look Foaly in the eye, then in one decisive motion she moved forward and the couple had their very first kiss. It was quite the Kodak moment.

A few moments later they stepped apart and stared at the ground, both blushing furiously now. When they finally looked up Foaly smiled and broke the silence.

"Well, I guess we both have a lot of work to do now, we should probably get started."

Estella returned the smile, "Yes, I'll try to investigate the situation further with Mulch and Holly."

"Alright, be careful." Estella nodded and started to walk away when Foaly called out one more time. "Oh, Estella!" she turned her head; "I'll be coming by to see you soon, is that alright?"

The female centaur's grin broadened, "That sounds wonderful, I look forward to it."

As he walked back to his operations booth Foaly was still smiling, he had previously detested trying to decode Mamilton's mysterious sign language, it had been too tedious, but he was now sure he had more than enough motivation to get it done.

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A/N: There, THERE now it's done and I just want to freeze it, take a picture, and hang it on my wall. I don't think authors are allowed to like their own pairings this much but I don't care. I was squealing to myself just as I wrote that wonderful KISS scene. My god it's gotten so bad I keep thinking that I'll go look for other fanfiction with Foaly and Estella but then I realize that there are no others, there are barely any Foaly pairing stories at all! And almost all those stories are with Holly! (No offense to Holly/Foaly shippers I just prefer my pairings to have the same number of legs.) Ok, here's my challenge: write a one-shot piece of Foaly/Estella. It can be as long or short as you want and involve anything, it could have nothing to do with The Charity Case or it could just be their perspectives on a certain scene. I'll put the winner in my livejournal (though you are free to post it as well) and put the author in an upcoming scene of The Charity Case. I've already received an entry from my beta editor Inkheart. It all makes me so happy.

As for another less demanding (and egocentric) contest who is your favorite character in the story thus far? I have two categories: favorite original character and favoritely portrayed cannon character. Kindly vote! I must know!

As for Artemis's side of the story I'm afraid I've left you with a bit of a cliff hanger. As with many of my chapters I had to cut a long scene in half so that I wouldn't keep my readers waiting for a ridiculous amount of time for an update. Also I had been starting to wonder if anyone even bothered to read my author's notes since I don't usually get many responses, the last chapter certainly answered that. It seems everyone wants Artemis to get paired and right now he probably will. I received an incredibly long review from The Hands of Fate and Destiny on the subject and I have given it an equally long response on my livejournal under the heading of WOW.

Now on a sadder note I must say that my time of constant writing ability is near an end for me as well as many others. My school will be reopening soon and that means much less spare time for me. Of course I have no intention of abandoning this story, it's the center of my creative energies right now, but I'm afraid there will be far more time between updates. I'll try to write as much of chapter eleven as I can in the meantime though, with a bit of luck school will barely interfere with my posting it. Anyway, thank you all for your encouragement I only hope I do not disappoint.


	11. Gaining Knowledge

**Chapter Eleven: Gaining Knowledge**

Matt didn't like to think of what he was doing as sulking. The problem was he couldn't really say he was furious or even angry, he understood Butler's reasons, but the situation seemed to call for a more dramatic word than sulking. Three minutes ago Butler had pulled up in front of the Clamendorf Hotel. Matt had been in a hurry to get out of the car but the bodyguard had stopped him.

"This situation may be dangerous Matthew," he had said. "If there is trouble it would be better if I went in alone, no offense to you but you'd probably only get in the way."

The words had hurt but Matt knew they were the truth, he had reluctantly agreed to stay behind as Butler went racing into the hotel. Of course this didn't mean the British boy had to be happy about the situation, he managed to stay in the car for a grand total of perhaps thirty seconds before he finally realized his nerves would not allow him to hold still any longer.

He got out of the car and began to pace in front of the hotel. He hated that he didn't know what was happening. When he had first spoken with Tomoe he had gotten a very bad feeling which was partially confirmed when he found she could speak English, but Butler was taking the situation even more seriously than Matt had expected. He seemed to believe that Artemis was in very immediate danger; obviously there was something more going on here that Matt was unaware of. His mind flashed briefly back to the incident at the airport, could this be another attack on Artemis?

Matt felt like he was going to explode with worry just then but luckily he was distracted by the sound of something cracking under his foot. Looking down he saw what appeared to be a broken watch. He realized after closer examination that it must have been broken very recently, the hands had stopped a mere ten minutes previously and the date it registered was that day.

Matt puzzled over it further, grateful to have something to take his mind off of Artemis for the moment. The watch was a very fine model, it wouldn't have been able to break without extreme force, perhaps one of the guests on the higher floors had accidentally dropped it from the window. That didn't sound right, hotels like this didn't design their windows to open, it would have had to come from somewhere else, maybe the roof.

Suddenly Matt's heart skipped a beat as the truth dawned on him, he was holding Artemis's watch and it had to have fallen from the roof so that had to be where Artemis was. Without a second thought he raced into the hotel and after a quick questioning of a desk clerk hurriedly entered the lift. Who knew if Butler would think to go to the roof in time? Matt knew it was up to him to go after Artemis.

With a ding the lift's doors opened to the hotel's top floor and the English boy came running out, desperately seeking the roof's staircase.

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Artemis repressed the urge to moan as he regained consciousness. He couldn't quite recall what had happened to him yet but he knew he would most likely benefit from taking in his surroundings before his assailant realized he had awoken.

"You can stop pretending," said a voice, "I know you're awake."

Well so much for that plan. Sighing Artemis opened his eyes and looked around. He was still on the hotel's rooftop but he found that he was now securely tied with his hands behind his back. Finally he saw who had spoken to him, of course it was Tomoe.

She was currently doing a quick survey of the rooftop while rummaging in her bag of "birdseed" which seemed to only have a handful of grain in it as it was mostly filled with the basic weaponry and equipment of a standard hitman. She looked at him with a sharp piercing gaze, though it was at a distance Artemis could no longer see any warmth in her eyes. He realized in passing that these eyes must be highly trained to have spotted his consciousness's tell-tale movement from when he had first awoken. She then stood up and walked toward him. She no longer had the timid walk of the girl he had first met, it was now one of determination. He had sinking suspicion he knew exactly what she was determined to do.

Artemis shook his head; it all seemed so obvious now. He had thought that her story was overly dramatic when he had first heard it but she had looked so innocent at the time that he had given her the benefit of the doubt. He really should have known better, an innocent appearance meant nothing, he should have been more thorough in questioning her. Even failing that he should have realized that things weren't as they appeared when he couldn't find any reference to her mother being kidnapped after hacking into the communications of her supposed abductors, Tomoe must have known this hiccup in her story would be questioned, she had been waiting for Artemis to come back to question her. She had even gotten him on the roof of the hotel where his cries wouldn't be heard and he likely wouldn't be able to run away.

Tomoe was now crouched in front of him and staring intently into his eyes, Artemis didn't know what she was thinking about but he knew he should use the opportunity to make her talk to him and see what information he could garner.

"Did you really have to hit me?" Artemis could already feel a nice lump forming where he had been hit.

Tomoe smirked, "I suppose I could have knocked you unconscious a number of less painful ways. The fact of the matter is I just wanted to hit you. You're a very annoying boy Artemis, so condescending. I'd advise you to work on that but you don't have very much time to and I'm sure you'll be worried about other things in that time."

Artemis frowned, the girl's Russian had improved immensely in the past few minutes, her education was obviously several notches above what he'd been led to believe. As for what she had said it only served to confirm what he had already suspected, she intended to kill him. The only reason he could think of that she hadn't yet was that she had questions for him first, probably about who knew where he was, so she could plan her getaway.

Sure enough Tomoe then put her hand to his pulse, looked him in the eyes and began questioning.

"Does anyone know you're here?"

Artemis mentally smacked himself, he hadn't even called Butler to tell him what he was doing. For a genius he was beginning to feel very stupid.

"Not as far as I know," he replied. Although Artemis was very proud of his lying ability he knew it wouldn't stand up to a professional's lie-detecting techniques. Of course he hadn't mentioned the letter he had left behind, someone might have found that by now. It was a slim hope but it was currently one of his best chances for survival since he lacked in knowledge when it came to untying oneself. For now all he could do was keep his would-be assassin talking.

"Who are you working for?" he asked.

Tomoe quirked an eyebrow, "Despite what my previous performance might have had you believe I'm not stupid. I see no reason to tell you that."

"What does it matter if I'm going to be dead soon? You could at least satisfy my curiosity."

The girl smirked and shook her head, "I couldn't tell you even if I wanted to. If my employer chooses not to reveal his identity to me it's not my business to question who he is as long as I get paid. I've never met him in person; he mostly just deals with me through his lackeys Crane and Sparrow."

Artemis's eyes widened, Crane and Sparrow! It all made sense now, they must have been infuriated by their lost status with the theft of The Fairy Thief, apparently enough to want him dead. One of them must have gone after him at the airport and now they had hired a professional assassin. But Tomoe had said that they were just the lackeys, who could be the one in charge of them? As far as he had known Crane and Sparrow worked independently.

While Artemis had been busy thinking about all this Tomoe had gone back to her bag of weaponry. She quickly selected a basic dagger, others might have favored less distinct causes of death but she had a certain fondness for the classics. Besides, it wasn't like the kid was going anywhere.

Suddenly she heard something behind her, it sounded like the door to the roof-top was opening. It had to be the boy's hulking bodyguard. She quickly shifted to a defensive stance. The next thing she knew she had been hit in the face with a shoe.

Matt had wondered what he would do when he got to the roof if Artemis really was in danger. It was already painfully obvious that he would be no help in an actual fight. His only hope would be to use the element of surprise to his advantage and do the unexpected. That was why when he had emerged on to the roof to see Tomoe wielding a knife his first instinct was to rip off his sneaker and throw it at her. He didn't hold still long enough to see if it hit but hurried over to Artemis.

Artemis wanted to ask what on earth Matt was doing there but knew there wasn't time, Tomoe would be after him in an instant. As far as he could see there wasn't enough time for Matt to do anything useful but apparently Matt had other plans. Thanks to his adrenaline rush the English boy was able to pick Artemis up and start running with him.

Tomoe ran after them as they went behind roof's doorway but when she went around the corner they were nowhere to be seen. She quickly looked up just in time to see Matt disappear over the edge of the ladder which led to the top of the roof's entrance.

Matt tried to catch his breath once on elevated ground. He and Artemis were safe for the moment, the only way on to their current platform was the ladder Matt had just gone up. Anyone to climb it after them would be at a defensive disadvantage.

The next step that it occurred to Matt take was trickier. He knew it would be a good idea to untie Artemis but he would have to stay down low to avoid any possible gunshots and stay as close as possible to the ladder to fight off the assassin if she tried to climb up.

"I don't suppose Butler knows you're here?" asked Artemis as the British boy began to untie his feet.

Matt shook his head, "We came to the hotel together but he was already on his way to Tomoe's room when I figured out you had to be on the roof."

Artemis considered asking exactly how Matt had figured this out and why he had come to the hotel in the first place but decided that now wasn't the best of times. He shifted to allow Matt to untie his arms and considered their options, they didn't have many. Artemis checked for his cell phone and found his pocket empty. It wasn't a surprise though, he had doubted Tomoe would leave it in his reach. He sighed and thought some more.

"You've done fairly well thus far Matt, thank you. I think it would be best if we remained up here for the time being, I doubt we'd be able to get far without a knife in our backs so to speak if we ran. Hopefully Butler will be able to figure out where we are when he sees that I'm not in Tomoe's room."

Matt was about to respond when he heard Tomoe speak. He was confused at first when he couldn't understand what she was saying but then realized she must be speaking in Russian.

"For god's sake woman," he cried, "this isn't some international relations meeting! Speak in bloody English!"

Artemis shook his head. "She can't, remember? If she could speak in English she would have when she was trying to befriend me…"

Artemis suddenly stopped when Tomoe began to speak again, this time in perfect English.

"I had thought you looked familiar, you're that girl who crashed into me outside the bookshop aren't you?"

Matt colored slightly and looked over the platform's edge at the assassin.

"I'm a boy!" he shouted angrily and hastily backed up when he saw that she was now holding a rather large gun.

Tomoe chuckled, she liked this one he had lots of spunk, too bad he had to die. She positioned her gun in order to fire in a split second if he stuck out his head again.

"I guess you just have delicate features then," she said sweetly. "It's really too bad you had to be Fowl-san's friend, as you've probably guessed you've gotten yourself involved in a life that is quite sinister."

This time Matt had the sense not to stick his head up but couldn't resist a retort. "Where do you get off calling his life sinister? You're the one who's sixteen and killing people!"

At this Tomoe actually laughed and despite the situation it didn't sound maniacal in the slightest. "And where did you find out I was sixteen? In those records of mine Artemis researched? I told him those things could be misleading. I had my age changed when the records were made so he would trust me more. I'm twenty-six."

"You age well," said a voice.

Tomoe quickly swirled around and a human mountain before her. She swore under her breath and unconsciously dropped her gun as Butler began to attack. She had hoped to avoid fighting the bodyguard, he was far stronger and well-trained than her. The only advantage she had was speed, her small size allowed her to move much more quickly.

As the two fought Artemis and Matt cautiously peered over the edge of the platform. Tomoe was doing her best but she clearly had no chance, in a few moments Butler had her in a firm hold. Upon seeing this the two boys climbed down from their vantage point. Artemis straightened his tie and proceeded to take control of the situation.

"You've done a good job Ms. Kagawa, but it ends here," Artemis felt it would now be in poor taste to use the woman's first name, if it was indeed her real name. "I could have Butler kill you several ways right now so I suggest you cooperate."

At this last statement Matt looked shocked, though considering all he had been through that hour it was a miracle that the boy hadn't collapsed. Artemis decided to ignore him for the time being, right now Tomoe the pressing matter.

"Now I'll ask you again," said the boy genius with a slight drawl, "who are you working for? You must have some clue at least, I'm sure you'll agree it's in your best interest to tell me."

Tomoe wriggled a bit in Butler's grip but found that she could still not escape. Finally she turned back to Artemis with a look of loathing in her eyes. "I've only spoken with him once on some sort of video phone but I could only see his eyAAAAAA!"

Suddenly she was screaming in agony. In his shock Butler quickly dropped her and stared in horror as she twitched on the ground.

"It's like she's being electrocuted," he said. Butler had seen bodies react like this in electric chairs. From the way she had been screaming he guessed that she wouldn't be getting up again. Sure enough when he checked her pulse a moment later it had gone completely dead. Tomoe Kagawa would certainly never be troubling them again.

After recovering from his initial shock Artemis performed a quick search on the body. He found a mark at the base of the back of her neck at the location of a nerve cluster that suggested it might have be the origin of the electrical shock. It looked as though there had been a small device attached there but it seemed to have self-destructed since its activation. Someone hadn't wanted to leave any evidence behind.

But if they had known to kill her at that moment that meant they had to be being watched. Artemis quickly looked around the rooftop and was shortly joined by Butler who had guessed what was going on. There didn't appear to be any surveillance equipment around them but that just meant that someone must have binoculars on one of the more distant roofs. As they didn't have any such equipment themselves it would be pointless to continue searching.

"Shall we get going then Master Artemis?" asked Butler after they had reached their conclusion.

Artemis nodded and looked toward Matt. The poor boy was slumped against the roof's doorway looking rather beside himself. Artemis knew that he had a lot of explaining ahead of him.

"What happened to Tomoe?" Matt asked shakily.

Artemis's heart sank a bit, here began the questioning that would probably end their brief comradeship. "She was electrocuted to death via a remote activated device that was on the back of her neck. We think someone watching us must have activated it when they saw she was going to tell us about her employer."

Matt was silent for a few moments as he absorbed this. "What are we going to do with her now then? Do you plan to just leave her here?"

"That would probably be for the best. We don't know her real name or anything about her, if the authorities connected us with her death it would just lead to a whole mess of scandal that would create more problems than it solved. This way we just need to bribe anyone who may have seen us when her body is found. I know it may seem wrong to you Matt but she was a killer, she was prepared to die like this."

The English boy was quiet again but took Butler's hand to get up and begin numbly walking down the stairs. Artemis supposed he wouldn't be asking anything more until his shock had worn off. During the near-silent ride back to the school the young genius actually started to feel guilty about bringing Matt into the whole situation.

In order to keep absolute silence at bay Butler spent the drive explaining about Matt's earlier encounter with Tomoe and how he had suspected she might be an assassin when he had heard of her unusual linguistic preferences. There had been a female assassin he had heard of who was capable of speaking English but detested doing so and would almost always deal with her clients and victims in Russian or Japanese. There were rumors that Englishmen had killed her family and caused her hatred of the language, only when she had no other option would she speak in English.

Butler finally gave up when the boys went for a solid fifteen minutes without acknowledging a word he said. Luckily they had just arrived outside St. Bartleby's and so the manservant was spared the awkward silence that would have ensued. He escorted the two boys to Artemis's room but then his principle gestured for him to leave. Butler supposed it was for the best, the two would have much to talk about and they deserved some privacy when they did so.

As he went back down the stairs Butler recalled how he had spoken to the front desk after finding Tomoe's room empty. They had told him that a boy had come to them mere minutes ago asking if it was possible to go to the roof. From their description he had known it had to be Matt. He still had no idea how the boy had known to go to the roof to find Artemis but he had knowingly risked his life to do so. Butler only hoped that Artemis could come up with a good cover story for all that had happened, it would be a shame if he lost a friend that devoted to him.

Meanwhile back in his room Artemis was still searching for what he would tell Matt in regards to the day's adventures. On the other side of the room Matt's eyes were boring a hole in the wall, Artemis followed his gaze and saw that the sixteen-year-old was looking at the copy of the Old Woman in the Wood Artemis had gotten for himself. Artemis flinched at this reminder of all that he was hiding from this boy that had so looked up to him.

Artemis was about to speak when Matt turned his head and held something out to him. It was his watch. Artemis took it and saw that it was now completely broken, it must have fallen from the roof when he'd been knocked unconscious. Well, at least that explained how Matt had found him. It had been quite clever deductive reasoning on the English boy's part. Artemis put the watch aside and prepared once again to launch into his story.

"I suppose you have a great many questions now Matt, and I have great deal of explaining to do so I—."

"That's alright Artemis," Matt said interrupting him. "You don't have to explain. There's really only one question I want answered."

Artemis blinked, this was a surprising turn. "And what is that?"

"Would you really have had Butler kill Tomoe?"

The criminal mastermind looked down ruefully. Of course Matt would want to know if he really capable having someone killed. He might have actually done it a one point in his life but the fairies had changed him. He was no longer the cruel twelve-year-old he had once been.

"No I wouldn't. I'm not sure what I would have done, but I wouldn't have had her killed."

Matt smiled slightly with relief and started toward the door. "At least you're not a murderer then."

"Wait," Artemis called out, "Don't you want to know why Tomoe was after me or anything else?"

Matt shook his head as he opened the door. "Somehow," he said, "I think I'm better off not knowing."

With that Artemis suddenly found himself alone in his room with a million questions of his own swirling around his head.

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Estella was still blushing when she got back outside but she was soon ready to get back to business. That is until she saw Holly shimmer into view with a grin that would have reminded her of the Cheshire cat were she familiar with human literature.

"I'm glad to see everything worked with you two," said the mischievous elf.

She had been watching them while she was shielded! Estella was angry but just gnashed her teeth began her mental chant again, 'Mission first, revenge later. Mission first, revenge later.'

Mulch who had fallen asleep since Estella left jerked violently awake as the two females got back in the shuttle.

"Finally!" he cried. "I was starting to think you two would never leave. We've got work to do here! While you were inside taking your sweet time I came up with a list of all the places Estella's been lately where we might be able to find out some more. It shouldn't be too hard, there are only five of them."

"How do you know where I've been?" demanded Estella.

"I guess he's been tailing you," said Holly recalling her partner's recent mysterious behavior. "You were being a bit evasive."

Estella grumbled something under her breath but Holly ignored her and took the list from Mulch. "I think we should research these places bit before going to any of them. If Estella's injury was any proof they're probably dangerous."

The other two agreed so it was several days later when they re-grouped and set out again. What they didn't know was this time they were being watched by a rather cruel set of eyes. Once they had driven off the eyes' owner looked away from where they had been to a small screen he was holding. Until recently the screen had been showing video feed and vital statistics of a young woman. But now the vitals were gone and the video came only from the eyes of a corpse.

Ms. Kagawa had failed and had had to be eliminated. Of course at this point the Jalingers might not have even needed her services. The elf chuckled to himself as he put the screen away.

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Author's Note: There, chapter eleven is finally done. As much as I love this story I'm really starting to look forward to finishing it. Maybe then I'll just do a bunch of one-shots and drabbles. Anyway this isn't near being done so I won't waste time thinking about it yet.

As readers of my livejournal now know I HATE action sequences. You may have noticed I avoid them like the plague but this chapter required it and it's only going to get worse. If you don't read my livejournal I suggest you do. It has many interesting (I think) insights into The Charity Case and I like it when people read my rantings.

I am however very pleased with this chapter for several reasons: it throws out important plot points, it joins up Holly and Artemis's timelines (you probably didn't notice but Holly was a few days behind Artemis), it establishes a connection between Tomoe and the Jalingers, and (most importantly) it let's me finally get rid of the ever-irritating Tomoe.

Brief moment of silence for departed assassin.

Did anyone notice in chapter four (strain your memory) that Sparrow was speaking to the assassin in Russian? That was your first clue about Tomoe. Sparrow said it was a guy because she had technologically disguised her voice until she could be sure of who she was working with. Just so you know.

In Other News:

The Hands of Fate and Destiny has given another amazingly long review which I have responded to in my livejournal (again available through my profile page). I wish to openly thank her for all her help.

As for the results to chapter ten's contests it seems that everyone loves Matt and Artemis the best. For those of you who want them to get together in this story they are now having a teary-eyed embrace. The winner of my other contest, the Foaly/Estella one-shot is the wonderful Inkheart. If you wish to read her entry it is on FFN under the title Foaly's Glitch. Please read it, it made me squeal./fangirl. If you have made an entry I may not be aware of please let me know and I will read it and possibly give you a joint first place. I also guarantee it will make me squeal. Don't you want me to squeal?

I have drawn pictures of Matt and Theo. They didn't come out exactly the way I picture them, mostly because I can only do anime style people, but I think you all might find it fun to take a look. I plan to post them on my livejournal soon if I can figure out how. Subliminal message _You WILL go to my livejournal. You cannot resist the shameless plugs. _End subliminal message.

The Charity Case has now gotten fifty reviews and over one thousand hits. Cries and bows deeply Thank you all so much. I'm now half-way to my goal of one hundred reviews for one story. I couldn't have done this without you my wonderful readers.

Chapter Twelve: I don't know when. I'm taking a few days off and then we'll see how long it will be and how long it will take to write it. Until then good-bye and thank you for any reviews you leave.


	12. Making Plans

**Chapter Twelve: Making Plans**

Things had taken an unexpected turn lately. For the past two weeks Artemis had found himself in a role reversal with Matt. Now the British boy was being antisocial one and Artemis was one trying to make him open up.

Matt had been avoiding his friend like the plague the incident with Tomoe. Though Artemis could hardly blame him, he had pretty much shattered any innocence the boy might have had in regard to him, he knew he couldn't just leave matters as they stood. Over the past few months Artemis had somehow begun to grow fond of Matt, maybe even consider him a friend. He had enjoyed the time they spent together and had occasionally even felt almost like a normal fifteen-year-old boy when in Matt's company. Artemis wasn't one to delve into and analyze his own emotions if he could help it but he certainly wasn't going to let what might have been his first human friend slip away.

However this was easier said than done. Artemis didn't want to trap Matt to talk to him but the English boy was becoming increasingly hard to pin down. In an effort to reconnect Artemis had started to actually attend his classes again but whenever the bell would ring Matt would be racing out the door to avoid him and wouldn't acknowledge anyone at his door at any time. After ten consecutive days of this Artemis decided it was time for alternate tactics.

After fifteen minutes of contemplation an obvious answer occurred to him. Relieved to finally have a definite course of action Artemis opened his laptop and began to compose a carefully worded email.

Through the wall Artemis was typing next to Matt was also composing a message. Ever since he had seen Artemis nearly killed and Tomoe actually killed he had felt utterly lost. Before he had implicitly believed everything Artemis had told him no matter what evidence he had to the contrary. Now he could no longer deny that the boy genius had a life more dangerous than Matt could have guessed.

Theo could be a git at times but he always knew just what to when life got tricky. Matt knew that if anyone could help him right now it would be his brother. However, although he wrote about the current shakiness of his relationship with Artemis he didn't say exactly what had happened. Despite it all Matt found he still cared about the boy that had chosen to help and guide him when he had first arrived at St. Bartleby's and he didn't want Artemis to be in trouble because of him.

As he finished his letter Matt felt still felt slightly guilty though. It felt like he was betraying Artemis by writing about him at all.

_It serves him right though_, thought Matt. _We're supposed to be mates and yet he kept such a huge part of his life from me. _

Decisively Matt clicked send and began looking for something else to do, anything to distract him from the nagging voice of the back of his head reminding him how he had also been keeping a very large portion of his life from Artemis. But that wasn't a cruel or evil secret. The two things were completely different.

Weren't they?

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It was really remarkable how many different kinds of ice cream people were willing to attempt to create, Theodore mused as he returned to his room.

To celebrate his team's latest victory and the spectacular turnout to their latest game he and his friends had decided to make October 24th their official ice cream day; wherein they would go to as many shops as they could find still selling the delicious dessert and consume only the most unheard-of of flavors.

It had been a good day, the flavors Theo had volunteered for had been of varying quality but had all been good for a laugh. He smiled as recalled the corn, cactus, and wasabi ice creams he had tried and even the dubious "Raw Horse Flesh" (thankfully it hadn't tasted anything like horses). Now however he was ready to relax. He finished off his final cone of the day (pumpkin) and turned on his computer.

Fifteen minutes later his roommate Cecily came in just as Theo was finishing his email. It was a bit unusual for Theodore to actually be receiving emails as he usually insisted on only being written to through regular letters so Cecily took notice. The only reason her roommate even had an email address was in case something important happened that he needed to know right away, at the moment she could only think of one person in Theo's life who might need immediate assistance just then.

"Is something up with Matt?"

Theo sighed, "Yes, I'm not sure exactly what's happened but it seems to have thrown a bit of a wrench in between Matt and Artemis. They both wrote to me for help in fact."

"I guess that's because they know you'll be the panacea to all their problems." Cecily smirked, "I've never known you to have a problem you couldn't solve."

Theo quirked an eyebrow at her and she laughed, "Come on Snooky, I know you've probably already come up with a plan."

"Oh, just a vague idea," he said dismissively. Then his façade fell away and he smirked mischievously, "Do we still have some tickets for our Irish opening?"

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**Entry in the diary of Artemis Fowl II, October 25th**

_In regard to my recent dilemma with Matt I have finally found a ray of hope. Last night I wrote to his elder brother Theodore in the hopes that he might be able to advise me as to how I might be able to reconcile matters. Of course I did not tell him anything about Ms. Kagawa only that Matt had recently discovered a darker side to my nature and that now I have found myself unable to make amends. The response I received was better than I had hoped. Theodore was quite sympathetic to my cause and assured me he would personally assist me by sending me a ticket to his 'Toad Ball' team's first Irish game which he assures me Matt will also be present at. In the meantime he plans to speak with his brother and if all goes according to his plan Theodore says we will soon "have ample grounds for mutual forgiveness". I am not entirely certain what he means by that last statement but I'm willing to put my trust in him if it means I may once again spend time with my British friend._

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_Dear Mrs. Fowl,_

_As requested in your last letter I've put together a rough status report of how your son is currently doing at his school._

_Educationally: As I'm sure you expected Artemis continues to excel in all of his classes, in nearly all of them he surpasses even the teachers if what he tells me is true, and knowing Artemis I doubt it is anything but true._

_Socially: Most likely this is the primary area of your concern. Although Artemis still has little tolerance for his classmates he has shown a marked improvement when it comes to Matthew, the charity student he agreed to act as a guide to last year. He seems to now truly consider the boy to be a friend despite the great differences in their personalities and Matthew also seems to enjoy spending time with Artemis._

_However they seem to have recently had a serious argument. I'm not entirely sure what caused the discord but Matthew has been avoiding Artemis for the past two weeks. Artemis has informed me that he now has a plan to set things right though. Apparently Matthew is going to be attending a new type of sporting event on the 29th called 'Toad Ball' in which his brother is a participant. Artemis hopes to be able to make amends then._

_If you wish I will inform you of any following developments in few days' time, though I'm sure that Artemis will be able to manage._

_-Butler _

Angeline finished reading the letter to Artemis Fowl Senior and put it back in its envelope.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Her husband shifted in his chair which was comfortably situated in Fowl Manor's abundant library. "Well we can hardly expect Butler to tell us if Arty is involved in anything dangerous right now but it would be to his advantage to tell us as much of the truth as possible. If our son truly is spending time with a friend and actually enjoying himself it stands to reason that he isn't spending nearly as much time on criminal plots. This could be a very good step towards him giving crime up for good."

Angeline looked at the floor worriedly, she had been surprised and none too pleased when Artemis senior had discovered and told her about the continuing criminal tendencies of their son. She had been in favor of confronting Artemis about them to make him stop once and for all but her husband had reasoned with her, telling her of the positive change that had recently come to Arty's plots and persuaded her that what their son needed was time to gradually leave the criminal world when he decided he was ready. As parents it would be best if they just kept an eye on him and made sure nothing he did got out of hand.

"Well that is good to hear," she said, "but I'm more concerned about his friendship right now. Arty hasn't been able to get along with children his age since he was a baby. I'm worried about this fight of his with Matthew. I know it's normal for friends to fight but two weeks of avoidance? That sounds serious. I think we should visit Artemis and try to help him. I don't want him to be alone again."

Mr. Fowl smiled at his fretting wife and wrapped his arms around her. "Angeline, you know that the last things Artemis needs right now are his parents butting into his life. Butler says our son has a plan and you know that Artemis has a definite way with plans."

"Yes I do know," Angeline sighed. "But I miss being able to solve all of Arty's problems for him, he's growing up much to fast. I just wish we could at least send someone down to him to make sure everything goes alright."

Suddenly the two heard a voice in the hall. "Hello? Is anyone home?"

They left the library and went out into the main hall to see a familiar figure starting up the staircase.

"Juliet!" cried Artemis Senior. "I thought you were in America on your wrestling tour?"

Juliet broke into a grin and came back down the stairs. "I was but Horatio the Huge broke our tour bus's engine when Vicious Vince body-slammed him into it. Tensions have been getting pretty high between them and some other wrestlers so our managers decided it would be a good time for us to go on vacation. I've got the whole week off to catch up with everyone around here."

"Oh that's wonderful Juliet!" said Mrs. Fowl and she gave the girl a warm hug. "I only wish Artemis and Butler were here too, they would love to see you."

Juliet looked slightly disappointed when she found out that her brother and former charge weren't at the manor but Mr. Fowl looked thoughtful and exchanged a meaningful glace with his wife.

"If you wanted to see them," he turning back to the young wrestler, "we were looking for someone to personally check on our son for us. I'm sure we could arrange to send you down to St. Bartleby's. It would be a lovely surprise for them. We'd just want you to make sure everything is going smoothly with Arty right now, would you mind?"

Juliet broke into a delighted grin, "It's no trouble at all Mr. Fowl. I am a Butler after all."

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That Saturday Matt was the only one unaware of any plans around him. He was just planning to spend another weekend essentially locked away in his room but when he was forced to leave for lunch Matt found his brother happily waiting outside his door.

"Oh hello dear brother," said Theo cheerfully, "I was just about to see if you were in."

"Theo!" Matt, glad to see a friendly face after having spent so much time by himself, quickly gave his brother a tight hug of welcome. "Did you come to help me?"

Just then Matt thought he saw a mischievous gleam in Theo's eye but it was gone so quickly he couldn't be sure.

"Of course that's what I'm here for, lord knows I couldn't trust you to your own devices to deal whatever Artemis did, you'd probably end up expelled by the time you were through."

Ordinarily Matt would have given his brother a whack on the head for such a statement but today he just didn't care. Upon seeing that he wasn't going to be injured (a sure sign that Matt wasn't doing well) Theo continued with his plan.

"I thought that you could do with a day of recreation, and who better to recreate with than your charming elder brother? I have the whole day planned out ending with you in a front row seat," he pulled out a ticket from his front pocket, "at our very first Irish Toad Ball match!"

Matt was delighted, this was exactly the sort of thing he needed. He had known he could trust Theo to help him out.

"That sounds great!" he said with more cheer than he had shown in the past two weeks. "Let's get going right now!"

A brief look of tension came over Theo's face, "Don't you have to get your shoes or a bag or something first?"

"No," said Matt looking confused, "why do you ask?"

Theo was about to answer when suddenly Artemis came out of his room. For a moment all three boys looked at each other with identical expressions of surprise but before anyone could say anything they might regret Theo stepped in. He moved in front of Artemis and began vigorously shaking his hand.

"Hello again Artemis, I trust you remember me? I'm told that it's often hard for me to be forgotten. Anyway I hope you don't mind but I'm going to be borrowing Matt for the day. I'd invite you to come along but a bloke's got to have some quality time with his brother, I'm sure you understand."

After that the two Burbenshires left it what must have been record time but Artemis wasn't paying attention, he was focusing on the note Theo had just pressed into his hand. He quickly unfolded it and a ticket fell to the ground. After picking it up Artemis looked the message over.

_Artemis-_

_Everything is all set for tonight. Our tickets don't reserve specific seats so it's up to you to try and get close to Matt. Today I'll be talking with him a lot so he shouldn't run away at the game. Remember to keep an open mind when you're talking. The game starts at seven._

_-Theo_

_P.S. It's almost Matt's birthday so if you want add a bit of icing to the cake you could get him a present. Nothing fancy or expensive rich boy, Matt wouldn't like it and the situation is delicate enough as it is._

Artemis checked his watch, it wasn't even noon yet, he supposed that was plenty of time for a bit of shopping.

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Meanwhile Theo and Matt had just gotten outside, the elder still dragging his younger brother along. Matt tried to catch his breath when they finally stopped next to Theo's car.

"What was that about?" he asked.

Theo waved his hand nonchalantly as he climbed into the driver's seat. "It's nothing Matt, I just knew you wouldn't want to be talking to Artemis just then and I thought it for the best that he not know the real reason behind my visit."

Matt still thought that his brother had acted a bit strangely even considering his explanation but decided to let it go. Theo always acted strangely.

"So where are we going?"

"On my way here I saw a lovely restaurant several towns over. Are you hungry?"

Matt smiled again. "I'm starving."

Theo returned the grin. "Wonderful, and while we're on our way I've brought you a present you can open. It's over in the back seat."

Matt eagerly retrieved the package. In all his recent preoccupation he had completely forgotten that his birthday was approaching, he would be seventeen that year. Theo's presents in years past had hardly been things that Matt had put on his wish list but whether it was a giant chocolate penguin or a collection of classic cartoons the gifts were always interesting.

He quickly unwrapped the gift and looked inside. It was a new outfit. That might have seemed dull to some, especially considering Theo's personality but when Matt saw the whole thing he was touched.

He turned to his brother who was still watching the road and shook his head. "Thank you Theo, I love it but you know I can't wear this."

"Of course you can dear sibling. We're going to be far away from St. Bartleby's all day, you'll be perfectly safe. You can change at the restaurant. Think of it as an early birthday present to yourself."

Matt shook his head again but was smiling this time. He didn't know how to thank his brother enough so he decided to avoid it altogether knowing Theo would understand.

"If this is a present for myself," he said impishly, "does that mean you're going to get me something else for my birthday?"

Theo chuckled and the mischievous glint returned to his eye. "Don't you worry Matthew, I've got a much better gift planned for you. You'll see it soon enough."

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A/N: Finally! I was starting to think I'd never get this chapter done. I'm sorry this update took so long but as I warned you it would school has been drastically cutting into my life. I actually had many more plans for this chapter including the actual Toad Ball game but I didn't want to make you guys wait any longer. I'm also sorry that Holly didn't show up here but as followers of my livejournal will know I've decided it would be best to separate the two storylines until they merge. I'll try to update soon, I've already started chapter thirteen. I'd like to again thank my beta Inkheart and my other new beta Elf-lover for their help with the editing of this chapter.

On a side note I want to say that all the flavors of ice cream Theo tried were in fact real. I haven't tried most of them but I highly recommend pumpkin for anyone who can find it. It's quite the treat.


	13. Revelations

**Chapter Thirteen: Revelations**

Toad Ball is a game many have tried to describe but find their adjectives often fall short. Quite simply there isn't any real way to explain the euphoric feeling fans of the game and players get when a match is occurring.

The sport was first invented during Theodore's freshman year at college when he was taking a course in fairy tale analysis and the class began to take a look at The Frog Prince. Theo, being the unusual boy he was, began to wonder exactly why the prince had been turned into a frog in the first place. He discussed the matter with his more eccentric friends and soon found that the theories they had woven would "make a bloody brilliant game."

It indeed went on to become a glorious sport with a cult following throughout England. However when asked which game he had played was his favorite Theodore chose the league's first Irish match. The reasons he gave for this choice included it being a particularly tense game due to the need for a last-minute substitute and it being the first match featuring the now famous "Ribbing Ring-Around" technique.

However it is believed by some that the real reasoning behind Theodore's choice in fact had nothing to do with the actual match.

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Artemis had seen the football field where the Toad Ball game was being held several times since that was always where St. Bartleby's annual pubic science fair was held. However as he entered the arena he could have sworn he had never seen the building's inside before in his life, the transformation was incredible.

All around the stands were medieval props which by themselves gave the place a suitably intriguing atmosphere but the really incredible sight was on the field itself. It had been covered from end to end by a complex double-layered maze and had a throne set up at either end.

Artemis mentally noted that the sport must have a better budget than he would have supposed but soon set the thought aside to focus on his mission at hand. The stadium was already beginning to fill and he could tell it would be tricky to navigate through the crowds soon. If he could manage it he had to try and find Matt before too many started crowding in.

Because he was so intent on his searching Artemis didn't notice the first time his shoulder was tapped from behind, however by the third time the tapping became impossible to ignore because it transformed into a hard thump on the back. Artemis turned in mid-stumble and was surprised to see that the insistent attester of his attention was Juliet Butler.

"What on earth are you doing here?" he asked taken aback.

Juliet smirked; it wasn't often that she got to surprise the young genius. "I decided to come home for a visit and your parents told me where to find you and Butler." She looked around. "Where is my brother anyway?"

"He's checking the building for explosives. I have no reason to believe this game could come under attack but it's best to be on the safe side. I am after all a millionaire's son."

Artemis watched her carefully as he said all this. After he and Butler had regained their memories Artemis had thought it would be for the best that Juliet not regain hers. It would only make her want to get involved with Artemis' schemes again if only to be able to reconnect with the People. He didn't want that though, Juliet had established a good life for herself, and he didn't want her to give that up.

The trouble was Artemis wasn't entirely sure what Juliet did remember about the past three years. Of course anything specifically involving fairies was out but there were many things she had done because of the fairies that might have caused a spark in her memory. Many of these things would involve Artemis' criminal tendencies and he knew he would have to be careful about what he said around her until he knew just how thorough Foaly had been.

Juliet nodded, apparently nothing Artemis had said had sparked her memory. "Actually Arty there's something I'm supposed to talk to you about--." However she was suddenly cut off by the stadium's loudspeaker making an announcement.

"Would a Matthew Burbenshire please report to the Team Jingoist locker room? Matthew Burbenshire."

Artemis's head snapped towards the speaker and then back to Juliet. He needed to find the locker room quickly but he wasn't sure he'd be able to get away without explaining things to her. However this proved to be an unnecessary worry on his part when Juliet surprised him for the second time in those five minutes.

"Matthew Burbenshire, isn't that the friend you're here to make up with?" Juliet stifled a giggle at the wide-eyed look on Artemis's face and explained. "Your parents told me about it, apparently they found out from Butler."

Artemis shook his head, making a mental note to do something about this conspiracy when he had the time; right now he needed to find Matt.

"Do you have any idea where the locker rooms are?" he asked hastily.

"Yeah, I came in through the back entrance and I saw them there. Come on, I'll show you."

Artemis quickly followed the wrestler's brisk pace and soon found himself in the back-area of the stadium. He looked around anxiously and soon spotted what had to be the locker room he was looking for since it had a sign reading "Team Jingoist" on it door.

Now all that was left was to find Matt but the boy was no where in sight. The trouble was the hall was quite crowded with players and fans alike, many of whom seemed to be worriedly discussing a player who had gotten injured and could no longer play. Just when Artemis was about to give up and go back to his seat he heard a voice behind him.

"Theo, why did you have me paged? You said you had to get ready for the game."

Artemis whirled around and sure enough there was Matt, but it suddenly became painfully apparent that this wouldn't the happy reconciliation the young genius had hoped for. It was going to be a lot more awkward.

Matt was wearing a dress.

Artemis stared.

Matt stared back with a look of horror.

Neither moved for what felt like an eternity but they were saved from the awkwardness of breaking the silence by Juliet.

"Hello you must be Artemis's friend Matt. I'm Juliet, a friend of his family's," Juliet took Matt's hand and shook it. "It's nice to meet you. Actually I'm surprised to see you're a girl, I assumed from your name that you were a boy."

"So did I," muttered Artemis. It wasn't that Matt was cross-dressing (Artemis prided himself on his open-mindedness and he could have handled something like that), it was that the fit of the dress revealed that, in fact, this was the first time since he had known Matt that she wasn't cross-dressing at all.

Theo stood off to the side watching the drama unfold. He had known his plan would be risky but he had also known that the best medicine for discovering a dark secret was to reveal one of one's own. Seeing the expression on his sister's face now though made him think that perhaps he had been too hasty in his planning. It was of his hands now though. All Theo could do now was let the two friends be alone to work things out.

He quickly took hold of Juliet's wrist and twirled her around to face him. It was lucky for him that she decided it would be a bad idea to break any of his bones before she knew who he was. Once the turn was complete Theo launched into one of his most charming acts.

"Hello Miss Juliet. My name is Theodore Anton Burbenshire; I am Matthew's elder brother. Now please forgive me for the suddenness of my request but you seem to be a fit girl, would you be interested in participating in our Toad Ball game? One of our key players has gotten injured and we'll unable to play without your help."

Juliet smiled, she had no idea what Toad Ball was but she had a feeling she was about to find out. After all, Artemis could use some time alone.

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Now that the missing player issue had been solved the hallway was emptying rapidly. Soon all that was left were the two teenagers who were in an unfolding drama all their own.

Matt leaned against the wall and clutched her head her hands. "I'm going to kill that bloody bastard of a brother of mine."

"I really don't think you should be the angry one here," said Artemis scornfully. "You're the damn hypocrite who never told me you were a girl."

Matt was quiet for moment as she let the statement sink in. "I may be a hypocrite," she said slowly, "but you never told me you were a thief."

Artemis froze and his brain went into an immediate overdrive. How on earth could he—or rather she— have found out? He went through all the possibilities he could think of but before he could come to any conclusion Matt spoke up again.

"It was last month," she said. "You lent me a disk for a project I was doing in my multi-media class. I guess you were in a hurry or something because the disk you gave me had some sort of diary entry on it…" Matt let the sentence trail off.

It was all coming back to him now. He remembered his surprise when he had discovered when writing in his diary about Tomoe that he hadn't recording anything since before he had planned his painting theft. Artemis had accidentally used the wrong disk some weeks before when he had written out his diary entry about his plans to steal the Old Woman in the Wood painting. Once he had discovered the error he had planned to transfer the file to his normal disk but had forgotten about it when he had become preoccupied with the bullies assaulting Matt. She must have read the file when she saved her multi-media project.

"Apparently it doesn't matter if you're a boy or a girl, you still have shockingly little respect for my privacy," he said rather scathingly as he desperately tried to change the subject. If he could stall long enough he might still be able to save himself. "What is your story anyway? What are you doing at St. Bartleby's? How did you get in, in the first place?"

Matt blushed and turned away. "It's because of my name. I, err, wasn't well-liked by the students at my last school. I didn't have many friends, well none really, and so I decided to apply for a scholarship to go to a better school. Well, the woman working at the application office heard that my name was Matthew and checked me off as a boy so here I am. But you're dodging the subject at hand, your diary entry on the disk."

Matt turned back around to face Artemis. "At first I thought that it might have been some sort of story you were writing on the side; but then I went to research the painting you wrote about online a few weeks later and found out it had been stolen while you were with your parents in the same city. It was too much to be a coincidence--."

"Wait a minute," Artemis interrupted. "You mean to tell me your name is actually Matthew? What kind of a girl is named Matthew? And your story doesn't explain what you're doing here at all. Why would you just allow them to say you were male? Although," he studied her, her chest was practically flat and could be easily hidden beneath loose clothing and her hair barely reached her ears, "I can see how they might make that mistake."

Matt blushed again, this time indignantly. "So what if my name is Matthew? What kind of a boy is named Artemis? That was a girl's name last time I checked. Besides, my parents raised Theo, don't you think they have the right to be a bit nutters? As for the applications board, I didn't know about their mistake until I saw what schools I had been accepted in. When I saw that I got into a school as prestigious as St. Bartleby's I knew I couldn't pass it up. You may not have noticed between your criminal adventures but I love to learn. I had no way of knowing if I could get into an educational opportunity nearly as good if I re-applied as a girl. Besides," she looked down at her shoes, "everyone's always told me I look and act like a boy. I thought I might stand a better chance of making some friends if I really played the part."

Matt took a deep breath and looked at Artemis again, this time with eyes full of determination. "You can judge my lies however you want Artemis, but it doesn't change the fact that you lied to me too. You're a criminal, I know that's true and I've known since you came back from France."

Artemis watched her carefully; searching for any holes or lies in her story. "If you knew that why didn't you turn me in? Or at least confront me about it?"

Matt's head snapped up and she glared at him angrily. "Because I liked you, you jerk! You were the best friend I ever had. You didn't care if I was weird, you even liked me for it. You always helped me with my schoolwork even when it took me hours to understand something that was easy for you. You saved me when I was being beaten up and didn't make fun of me when you found out I couldn't fight. We teased each other and laughed about it and not once did you act like I was a burden. You did all of this for me and never asked for anything in return. I didn't want to ruin all of that! What did I bloody care if you stole some stupid painting? All that mattered to me was that we could still be friends."

Suddenly the hallway seemed impossibly silent and for once in his life Artemis found himself utterly speechless.

Matt looked away from him and continued. "And then this whole thing with Tomoe happened. Artemis, I hated to even admit it to myself but you looked downright evil that day. For the first time since I'd known you, I was scared."

Artemis Fowl was not generally one to regret his actions, though it had been happening more frequently in recent times, but as he looked upon the young girl who had trusted him so utterly, he could have sworn that his cheeks became slightly tinged with pink as a feeling of shame washed over him.

"I think I know what Theo intended when he arranged for us to meet like this," Artemis said sullenly. "He probably thought that if your secret was revealed to me we would find ourselves on equal ground and be able to reconcile our differences. It's a shame that the magnitude of your secret pales in comparison to mine. I truly wish that Theo's plan could have worked. I'd had such high hopes when he wrote back to me."

Artemis was beginning to get very uncomfortable. He wasn't used to being in situations that were so emotional. He didn't know what he could say now but he also knew he couldn't leave, not until some resolution had been reached.

"You wrote to Theo? About me?" Matt was looking at him again and Artemis began to feel a slight ray of hope. "I thought he that did all this because of me, I wrote to him for help too."

Suddenly, Artemis felt his intellect stirring again. "If you wanted help as well that means that you also still want to be friends. What can I do so that we can move past this?"

Matt was quiet for a moment. She knew this was a very important question and she needed to be careful about her answer. Finally she arrived at a decision. "I need two things Artemis. First, I need to know the whole truth about your life, I don't want to be keeping things from me any more, and second, I need to know if you're sorry."

"For my criminal actions?"

Matt shook her head. "That can be for you to decide on your own time. I need to know if you're sorry for lying to me."

Artemis thought about it for a moment. "The first part sounds fair, it could be dangerous for you to remain ignorant at this point anyway, but the second part depends."

"On what?"

"On whether you're sorry for your own lies to me."

Matt smirked slightly, it was good to see Artemis acting clever again, she had missed that recently. "That sounds fair enough. I'm sorry for lying to you about my gender."

"And I formally apologize for hiding my criminal side from you and for any lies that might have stemmed from that."

"Thank you," was Matt's quiet reply.

"So does this mean we trust each other again?" asked Artemis.

Matt smirked a bit, "It means that now we can start to try to again."

Artemis felt slightly disappointed at this but realized that it was fair in light of the circumstances. Unsure of what to do now that the worst was over he put his fidgeting hand in his jacket pocket. Inside he felt something he had bought earlier that day and he smiled.

"Oh, I almost forgot," he said. He brought out the small box with a bow and presented it to Matt who took it hesitantly. "Happy birthday Matthew."

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A/N: Hello everyone. I'm extremely sorry for the long wait but I hope the contents of this chapter make it worth your while. I had hoped to actually describe how Toad Ball works in here but I couldn't find a way to make it fit. Sorry.

Anyway, Matt's secret is out. I've kind of been dreading this for months because I'm sure how you guy's will take it but it has been my plan since the beginning and if you were to re-read other chapters you would see a bunch of clues early on.

For those of you who might be worried, no, I'm not going to pair Matt and Artemis. I was considering it for a while but now I've decided it would be far too cliché. It doesn't matter though; the rest of the story works either way.

As for the next chapter, I'm not going to commit myself to any sort of deadline seeing how my last one got so messed up but it's going to go back to Holly and her side of the story. This will be a refreshing change from what I dub the "Soap Opera" aspect of The Charity Case.

Anyway, I hope you liked the chapter. See you some time in the future.


	14. Try To Catch and Get Caught

**Chapter Fourteen: Try To Catch and Get Caught **

Andrew Sparrow let out a puff from his cigar. It wasn't a habit he generally indulged in but today he was in the mood to celebrate. Business had been going well lately, very well.

He and Crane had been stealing and selling paintings all over the world at a pace they could normally only dream of. People just seemed to be extra eager to get their hands on priceless paintings these days and Sparrow and Crane were happy to provide.

At this point not even Artemis Fowl could bother Sparrow. He had recently learned that the assassin Crane had hired to go after him had not only failed at her mission but had also managed to get herself killed. Sparrow wasn't clear on the details but he presumed that Fowl's massive bodyguard had been the one to take care of her. It was no matter though, Fowl had been particularly inactive lately and now they were saved from having to pay the assassin's fee.

Just then Crane came in looking rather anxious. "We have a call on the phone."

Sparrow quirked an eyebrow. "So? Just pick it up, it's not going to bite."

"No you idiot, not the regular phone, the _other_ phone."

Sparrow immediately straightened and put out his cigar. This was bound to be important. Several months ago he and Crane had received an extremely unusual-looking video phone in the mail. Since then they had received only three calls on it but they had all been well worth their while. Somehow the person who called always seemed to know in great detail what deals they were in the middle of and would tell them exactly where they should make their next move. Sparrow and Crane didn't know who it was that always called them, but they had made a great deal of money thanks to him.

Crane picked up the phone and turned on the screen. There on it were the same mysterious eyes that they always saw and always seemed to have such a hypnotic effect on them. Sparrow and Crane sat down to await their instructions.

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Holly had always been proud of her LEP record but she had recently discovered that the good reputation that went with it did have its disadvantages. She had hoped to be able to get more information about the Jalingers at some of the criminal hot spots of Haven's seedier districts but, as she had discovered throughout the past week, any information that might have helped her tended to dry up when Holly got there. If she was lucky that would be all that would happen but today Holly Short was not getting much by way of luck.

She was currently hanging upside-down from the ceiling of a charming condemned building waiting for a pack of stupid but strong goblins to decide what to do with her. The plus side of this situation was that it gave her time to reflect. If she survived this ordeal it would come in handy to recall what she had done wrong at a later date.

It probably would have been a good idea to have worn a disguise, all cops whether they were currently on the force or not tended to create an air of distrust and Holly had an especially impressive record for getting such people as her current captures thrown in prison. It also might have helped if she had had a better plan of action than "wing it" for how she would get the information she was looking for. As it was that day, Holly had only been able to manage fifteen minutes before she had been ganged up on, tied up, and hung in her current position.

Holly began mentally cursing herself for her stupidity in taking Estella's suggestion that they split up. However she soon stopped her self-berating, right now she had to focus if she wanted to escape.

Holly examined her bindings, they seemed to be made of freshly shed goblin skin. She knew she wouldn't be able to just wriggle out of them but they would probably be fairly easy to cut if she could just reach file she had in her pocket. She craned her neck and looked back to the three goblins arguing in the corner, they still seemed to be unsure of what to do with her. Holly smirked, apparently she wasn't the only one who had gone into action without having a thorough plan.

"I say we fry her!" said the largest of the three. He conjured up a fireball in his hand to illustrate his point.

"Idiot!" exclaimed another. "If the LEP find her burned to a crisp they'll know it had to be goblins that did her in!"

"So what if they know?" scoffed the third who'd been feeling left out. "She deserves what she's got coming to her and it would teach those LEP goons not to mess with us."

Holly smiled slightly grimly, it seemed her captures were suitably preoccupied. She turned her attention back to cutting herself free.

"But what does it matter if they find out it was us? That won't scare them away it'll make them throw us in jail. I don't want to wind up in Howler's Peak."

"You know what I think Malvis? I think you're just a wimp! I had to serve a fifty year sentence up at the Peak and do you see me whining about it?"

Malvis gritted his teeth and shook his head. Sometimes hanging out with ex-cons just wasn't worth the street-cred it gave you. "I'm not saying we should wimp out on bumping her off I'm just saying we shouldn't make it so obvious that we were the ones who did it. That way we can still give the LEP a good scare but stay out of the slammer."

The larger goblin, whose name happened to be Eil, looked thoughtful for a moment, a feat most difficult for a goblin of his intellectual levels. Finally, he made his decision. "Alright, so we won't scorch her, but I want final say on how we do get rid of her, got it?"

The smallest of the group, a young up-and-comer goblin named Cyrep, would have liked to throw in booming support of the new plan so that he might gain some points with his elders but soon found that a new development would need to take precedence.

"But Eil, she's gone!"

The three hurried over to where Holly had been hanging just moments before. All that was left were the shreds of the skin they had tied her in. Eil smacked his forehead and started to hunt around the hideout.

Holly had hoped to be able to escape from the building while the goblins continued their argument but had found herself without enough time to do so as their fight had settled down. The only thing she'd been able to do was climb up a broken wall and wedge herself in a corner, hoping the goblins would be too dense to think of looking up.

Suddenly Malvis snapped his head toward an opening in one of the boarded up windows.

"There!" he said, point toward the hole. "I just saw a shadow, she must have gotten outside."

Holly breathed a quiet sigh of relief as Eil and Cyrep charged outside and prepared herself to jump down. But her sigh was soon gasped back in as she realized that Malvis was still in the room, and was staring right at her. Holly braced herself for the call that would bring the other two goblins back into the room but it never came.

"You can come down now Miss Short."

Holly stared at the goblin who stared right back. It didn't seem like he was trying to trick her but he might have been unusually intelligent for a goblin. In the end Holly's stiff joints were the deciding factor and she cautiously climbed down to the floor. Still it didn't seem that Malvis was going to try anything sneaky, in fact he looked down-right innocent now. She stared at him questioningly.

"I've heard you've been looking for information about some secret society lately," he said. "Is it the Jalingers you're worried about?"

Holly's eyes went wide. "How do you know? Do you know something about them?"

"I'll tell you soon but first we need to get out of here. Those two idiots won't be gone much longer. Follow me."

Holly hesitated for a moment but then quickly went after him as he left the room. To her surprise the goblin uncovered a hidden tunnel opening in the floor of the building and beaconed for her to follow. Holly took a deep breath and stepped through the opening. It was possible that this was all a trap but she wasn't about to give up on the first decent lead she'd been able to find.

After a few minutes of crawling in the dark Holly was glad to see a light ahead of her. Soon the tunnel widened into a small cavern and she was able to stand up again. The light she had seen turned out to be coming from a nuclear battery-powered lantern that Malvis had turned on.

Holly looked around the chamber, although there wasn't much to see. The walls were all still made of earth and it was completely barren aside from the lantern and a few other tunnel holes she could see in the walls.

"We had the dwarves among us make this cavern for our meeting," said Malvis fidgeting slightly. "We wanted to make sure you would be safe when I spoke to you but we didn't want you to see our actual headquarters in case things went poorly."

Holly stared at the goblin in shock as the pieces fell into place.

"You're a Jalinger aren't you?" she said as she started to slowly back away. Holly wasn't sure what she was going to do but she wanted to at least have some distance between them before he could make any sort of attack.

Malvis sensed her apprehension and raised his hands innocently. "You have nothing to worry about Miss Short. I just want to talk to you."

Holly narrowed her eyes, she wasn't about to trust him but if she was careful she knew she might be able to get some information from him. "Fine then, talk. Just make sure you don't get any closer to me."

The goblin sighed and sat down. "Well to start with my name is Malvis and I'm a Jalinger."

"Hi Malvis."

"It's not something I'm ashamed of Miss Short," he said hotly. "The Jalingers saved me. I was just some trouble-maker goblin doing stupid things to get a reputation in my gang. I would have wound up at Howler's Peak if they hadn't found me and helped me reform."

Holly scoffed. She had learned about the Jalingers in her history class. They hadn't been anything good. All they had ever done was cause violence, death, and destruction. Either this goblin was trying to play her for a fool or the Jalingers had taken to brainwashing their second generation of recruits.

"I know the reputation my group has," Malvis said nervously, "but there's a lot you don't understand. No one on the outside really knows what happened within the Jalingers during the first revolution. They never wanted to kill anyone but they were taken over from the inside."

Holly quirked an eyebrow, "Oh, really?"

"Look, I can tell you don't believe me so I'll leave out any specific names but this is something you need to hear." He took a deep breath. "Most history classes these days will tell you that the Jalingers had two leaders who eventually brought about the shameful massacre but that's not true. At least it wasn't at first.

"My mentors have told me that when the group first formed there was no real leader. There were only people who generally organized the meetings and kept track of any plans. The group as a whole would determine and agree upon any course of action. This system worked well for a while; everyone in the Jalingers wanted to keep things peaceful among themselves so they were generally open-minded and ready to compromise. The trouble was that when they began to gain more and more members there had to be multiple meetings in separate areas and things got difficult to manage. It was then that Evergreen and Camilla joined."

Holly sucked in her breath at the mention of what were perhaps the two most notorious names in fairy history. She had learned about them long before she had gone to school from her grandfather. He had survived the war and dealt with his trauma by ranting angrily about the Jalingers' two "evil, heartless leaders who deserved nothing less than the immediate execution they had received." Holly edged a bit closer to Malvis. She didn't want to admit it but she was beginning to get a bit drawn in by what he was saying.

"Well, those two were able to work together to manipulate the rest of the Jalingers into letting them take charge of things. They had a very deep hatred of the mud men and wanted to make the Jalingers more aggressive so that they could go to the surface more quickly. It's not known for sure but we generally believe that Camilla and Evergreen wished to take complete control of the Lower Elements and then use that power to destroy the humans."

"Well that makes sense in a twisted sort of way," said Holly. "But if the Jalingers were originally so peaceful why did they let those two psychos take power and then let them keep it?"

"Evergreen and Camilla were very clever. As they gained more authority and respect among the Jalingers they started to subtly change the group's values. Soon they had almost everyone convinced that the peaceful route they had wanted wouldn't work and that the acts of violence they committed were necessary if the Jalingers ever wanted to be able to go back to the open air that was rightful theirs."

Malvis sighed, the whole historical account seemed to be very painful for him to relate. "Well, you know that they were eventually overthrown and the group was dissolved. However, some of the Jalingers' youngest members still retained the ideals that had originally caused the group to form. Many years later they came together and began to pick up the pieces. Now the Jalingers everything they were supposed to be and all we want is to be able to show ourselves above ground without fear. Our new leader has sworn that the People shall never again be hurt because of us."

Malvis fell silent, allowing Holly to take everything in. For her part the elf wasn't sure what to think. She knew she had no reason to believe what the goblin had said but her gut told her that he was being honest. Of course she wasn't about to drop her suspicions but now there were other things to consider. The fact that he had spoken to her about all this, and considering that the cavern they were in had been dug for this specific reason Malvis probably was speaking to her on the Jalingers orders, seemed to be a good sign. If the group were up to its old tricks they would have probably just had her killed so as to avoid having their resurrection become publicly known.

Holly noticed that Malvis was still waiting for her to give him some sort of response so she racked hr brain for something neutral to say. "Why did the Jalingers keep their same name when they re-formed? It seems like that would just be asking for trouble."

Malvis smiled proudly. "We thought about changing it but decided to keep it so that we could prove something to the world. We know how shameful our history is but we want to rise above that and show everyone who the Jalingers really are. Plus, this way, no one will be able to accuse us of hiding from our past."

"How… noble of you." Holly said slowly.

Malvis sighed again. "Ms. Short, we're no trying to convert you to our cause. We just want you to understand that we're different now and to leave us alone. Please don't tell the world about us, they're not ready to know. Can you do that for us?"

"Look Malvis," she said rather irritably, "your story is a very nice one but I think you can understand why I can't just take your word for it that the Jalingers have gone straight. I'm going to have to continue my investigations and aside from all that I still have a case to solve."

"You mean the mystery of Ms. Lunos' missing father? There's no need to worry about that, as I'm sure you've guessed he's with us. It's entirely of his own free will; he decided to join the Jalingers again after one of our members approached him."

"Well I'm going to have to see him for myself to make sure of that," said Holly.

"I'm sure we can arrange that," said Malvis with a smile. "I'll let you know as soon as possible. In the meantime I have to go, my 'gang' is probably wondering where I am."

He pointed at a tunnel in the cavern. "You should take that one. It'll take you out of the goblin territory."

"I think I'll take my chances on the first tunnel," she said dryly. "At least I know where that one lets out."

Malvis shrugged and disappeared into one of the other tunnels. Once she was sure he was gone Holly went up her own tunnel, ready to get out of that dirt hole and back to her headquarters as quickly as possible.

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Unbeknownst to Holly she was not the only one in a rush to get to her detective agency. Foaly had arrived only minutes before her. He breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing his favorite elf; he had some very important news for her.

However before Foaly could even greet her Holly, between gasps for breath, began to tell him what had happened.

"So what are you going to do?" he asked once she had finished.

Holly flopped into a near-by chair and tried to sort through her thoughts. Foaly had always had a knack for getting to the point right away but for once she wished he hadn't. It had now been almost two months since Estella had first come to her and Mulch and in that time the case hadn't gotten any simpler. It seemed that at every turn she made things got more complicated. Now even the Jalingers' history, something she had taken for granted that she knew, had shifted before her eyes. Still, despite all this Holly knew she had to see this thing through to the end. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't.

Holly sighed; sometimes having high morals could be a real pain in the arse. "I suppose I'm going to have to have to wait for Malvis to contact me again. I don't what else I can do in the meantime."

Foaly was about to respond when Mulch burst in looking very frazzled. He began to speak hurriedly to Foaly but Holly was too engrossed in her thoughts to listen.

If only there were some source she could go to about all this for help. Some place where she could find all the answers she needed. Suddenly it dawned on her.

"Of course!" she said to herself excitedly. Holly started to head out of the room but a shout from Mulch stopped her in her tracks.

"Have you heard one word I've said?" he called angrily. "The Jalingers have Estella!"

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A/N: Sorry to leave you off on that cliffhanger but it was really the best chapter break I had available. You guys have no idea how thrilled I am with this story now. All the hard stuff is over and the plot developments have me at the edge of my seat. (Which is kind of pathetic considering I'm the author but I've got goose bumps now anyway). It's not just the plot that has me so excited but the general existence of this story. My goals for it right now are that it gets to be at least one hundred pages, gets one hundred reviews (that's just one of my dreams not one of those unsubtle hints that litter some of my earlier, more immature author's notes), and that it gets to be at least twenty chapters all of which seem likely to come true! Also it will be a huge achievement for me to finish this story. It is the longest, deepest, and most complex thing I've ever written. Thank you all for your encouragement.

As always I'm sorry for the delay but I'm afraid it's not going to get any better. My life is generally a very stressful one and I'm grateful whenever I have the chance to deal with writing. However I do promise that I will try to take advantage of winter break and work hard on chapter fifteen and post it as soon as possible.

Thank you once again dear readers, I could have never done all this without you.

(And also I want to thank my awesome, larger-than-life beta readers Elflover and Inkheart. This story would probably suck without you.)


	15. Trouble Brewing

**Chapter Fifteen: Trouble Brewing **

Estella was in a room. There wasn't really much more to say than that. It was a rather boring room, with four bland walls and a slightly low ceiling. There wasn't really anything to look at in the room, which was a shame, because if there had been Estella might have had the presence of mind to be able to keep track of time. As it was, she had no idea how long she had been there. It might have been hours. It might have been days. Maybe she had been there all her life and just hadn't realized it. Maybe everything else was just a dream.

In some distant corner of her mind, Estella knew she wasn't making much sense, but she was too weak to care. However long she might have been in that room, she knew that she hadn't eaten since arriving, and it was starting to seriously affect her.

She had been pacing back and forth across the room to try and maintain a sense of reality, but she knew she'd have to give up soon and try to sleep. At this point, she had to be careful to conserve her energy. She headed for the nearest corner to lie down, but she suddenly felt too weak to walk. As she blacked out and sank to the floor, Estella found she couldn't be sure if the arms that caught her were really there.

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Artemis didn't generally like to engage in superstitious thoughts, but from time to time he found himself thinking that there had to be some sort of gods of irony. At least, that was his best explanation for why Holly had decided to call him a mere fifteen minutes after he had promised not to keep any more secrets from Matt.

He and Matt had just gotten back to their seats to watch the Toad Ball match when Artemis felt his phone vibrate. It had been nearly a month since Holly had last called, so he had taken to carrying her phone with him wherever he went. Because it had been so long since he had spoken to anyone below ground, Artemis knew he couldn't just ignore the call, but it would be tricky to get away from Matt at this point without causing suspicion.

"Are you listening to me, Arty? This game is hard to understand if no one explains the rules."

Artemis blinked and looked back at Matt. "I'm sorry, I was just wondering what has happened to Butler. He's been missing for a while now, and I'm starting to worry."

"Well, someone that big can't be hard to find," said Matt, looking around. "Let's go look for him."

Artemis saw his opportunity. "This stadium is fairly large; we should search separate ends of it and meet back here in ten minutes."

"All right," and she smiled at him, but Artemis could see a touch of worry in her eyes, "just don't go making any secret plans in dark alleys or anything."

He forced a smirk and turned away before she could say anything else. He did feel guilty about hiding the People from Matt, especially after all that had happened, but the existence of fairies wasn't his secret to tell.

Once he was a safe distance away, he pulled out the phone and put it to his ear. "Are you there, Holly?"

"Yes, I'm here, but why is the screen filled with your ear?"

"I'm not in the most private of locations. It's better that I pretend this is just a regular cell phone until I can get somewhere more isolated." He continued walking briskly until he had reached the corridor and found a deserted room off to the side. Artemis pulled the phone away from his ear and smiled slightly. There was Holly, exactly as he remembered her.

"That's better," she said. "You might want to clean your ear out, by the way."

Her personality was apparently as up-front as ever, too. Artemis sighed. "I would hope that after nearly a month of no communication you would have something more important to say. Did you straighten out that business with the missing centaur?"

Holly grimaced "I wish I had. It turned out that that case is a lot more complicated than I had thought. You may want to sit down, because I have a lot to tell you."

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Matt hadn't intended to get totally lost; she had just happened to get unlucky in that she was wandering around an unfamiliar building that had apparently been built by the same people who had made the labyrinth. Within half an hour, she had found herself on the roof, in the boiler room, and then trapped behind one of the larger awards in the trophy room, all without once having gone down the same corridor twice. When she found herself outside again, behind the building, she had had enough and was ready to quit and just head back to the main entrance. Luckily, before she headed off, she saw Butler.

Matt frowned when she saw him, something was wrong. Normally he looked very alert, but right then he had a dazed look on his face as if he were daydreaming or something. Matt waved her hand in front of his face, but got no reaction. Confused, she snapped her fingers a few times, which seemed bring him out of it. He looked at her, startled.

"Matt? What are you doing out here?" He paused as he regained his senses. "And why are you wearing a dress?"

Matt laughed nervously. "Boy, have you missed a lot. I'll explain everything, but let's head back inside first. Artemis has been wondering where you are."

Butler looked confused. "Why would he wonder? I just left ten minutes ago."

Matt looked at him. "I ran into Artemis about two hours ago, and you weren't with him then. You looked kind of dazed when I got out here, are you alright?"

Matt watched Butler nervously for a moment, but the manservant had a face of stone and simply shrugged off the question neutrally. Butler was more bothered by the lapse in his sense of time than he let on, but right now his top priority was finding Artemis; apparently there were new developments for him to learn about.

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Artemis rubbed his forehead as Holly finished bringing him up to date on what had been going on underground since he had last heard from her. So now there was a supposedly peace-loving secret society involved that had previously caused some sort of fairy holocaust. It was a lot to take in all at once, but Artemis managed.

"So how long has it been since this group got a hold of your client? Have you heard anything from them since?" Artemis asked.

The elf sighed. "It's been a little more than a week and we haven't heard anything. It's not like we haven't been searching either; we just can't find anything. That's why I had to call you."

Holly looked very frustrated, and Artemis could understand why, but he still couldn't help being a bit annoyed. "Why didn't you call me sooner? This is obviously very serious, you should have asked for my advice weeks ago."

Holly scowled at him. "I was a little wrapped up in my work, okay? It wasn't until right before Estella was kidnapped that it occurred to me to call you."

"You said that was over a week ago. Why did you wait until after that?"

She grumbled something Artemis couldn't hear and blushed when he asked her to repeat herself. "My phone service was canceled for some reason. It took me a week to go through the paperwork to get myself back on the network."

Artemis wished he had lawyers that could go underground. A few lawsuits with the People's phone companies suddenly seemed like a great idea for stress relief.

"Artemis!" The elf's voice brought him back to reality. "Stop rubbing your forehead, I've got more to tell you."

"You'd better let me take over from here," said a voice off-screen. Holly nodded, and a moment later Foaly came into view.

"Nice to see you again, Mud Boy," he said. "I've got some things to show you."

"And what things might this be?" Artemis asked.

"Do you remember that security camera footage I got of Mamilton talking to that old elf in the weird sign language?"

"I remember Holly mentioning it, yes." Artemis frowned. "Have you worked out the code yet?"

"I started with the assumption that it was a secret code that all Jalingers knew. Working with that, I tried to crack it for a while by comparing it to other known sign languages. It would be almost impossible to make up an entirely new one and, even if someone did, it just wouldn't be practical to expect an entire society to learn and memorize a new language quickly.

"The trouble was, there weren't any more than vague similarities between the Jalinger signals and the other sign languages. It was starting to get a bit frustrating, so I thought I'd try another approach. This time I just ran a general search on matches between the position of the hands and well-known shapes.

"I can't tell you how much junk I had to dig through. To be honest, in the end I got lucky. I picked an item on the list at random, and I got a picture of some famous Mud Man painting. On a hunch, I narrowed the search down to just matches with Mud Man paintings, and guess what? Almost every gesture had a match in a famous painting.

"After that, it was just a matter of guess and check to figure out each signal's meaning based on the painting it was in and then see if it made sense in the original security feed. It wasn't easy, but I finally cracked it. The only trouble now is, I don't know what Mamilton and the elf are talking about. Holly wants me to play the video for you and translate, to see if you can give us any extra insight."

Artemis nodded and gesture for him to start the film, but Foaly hesitated. "Please do whatever you can, Artemis; it's very important to me that Estella get out of all this safely."

The young genius was surprised at the emotion in the centaur's voice. He wanted to inquire into the matter, but the security footage had begun.

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**Three months earlier: Lunos' Prosthetics United**

Mamilton walked into the room, wringing his hands nervously. He didn't know how Rognab had found him, but it now seemed that his worst fears were going to be realized. The small, shrewd-looking elf followed Mamilton in and, not wasting any time, confronted him.

_You've done a good job of hiding yourself, Log-Leaper,_ the elf signed quickly, _I had almost given up hope of finding you. Still, to have hidden well enough for that, you would have had to have lived in the bureaucratic chaos that is underground Africa, and no one can stand it there very long._

Mamilton glared and signed back, _I managed there for over a century; I would hope that would serve as clue that I don't want to have anything to do with you or the Jalingers anymore._

_That may be true, but the fact is we're still around, and we very much want something to do with you. _Rognab smiled cruelly. _Or rather do_ to_ you. We haven't forgotten what you did, Log-Leaper; there's still a call for revenge among us. Personally though, I think it would be a loss; you were quite brilliant when you were with us._

Mamilton gulped; he didn't like where this was going, but if Rognab noticed this, he didn't indicate it, only kept signing.

_We have new plans, Log-Leaper, but we need your expertise to make them work. I think it's a fair bargain; you would only need to work with us for a few months and then we'd leave you alone for the rest of your days. What do you say?_

Mamilton was terrified, but he tried not to show it as he closed his eyes and took a breath. He was tempted to just agree and not fight them anymore; it would make life so much easier; but he knew he couldn't do that.

A familiar memory flashed through his mind, and suddenly it almost felt like he was there with her again in that hospital room. They had both known it hadn't been an accident, but there was nothing they could do. Mamilton knew no one would believe him, and for her it was already too late. Still, she had found the strength to whisper to him, and in those final moments, Mamilton had made his last promise to Naga.

A new strength burned in his eyes when he opened them again. _No. I don't care what you do to me; I'm not going to help you again. I swore to Naga that I would never allow you to wreak the same havoc you had before, and I'm going to keep my vow. _

Rognab smirked at the determined look on the centaur's face; he couldn't remember the last time he had seen Mamilton look sure of himself. _My, what a wonderful sentiment; I couldn't bring myself to make you break it. I suppose we don't have to use _you_ for our plans; you are getting on in years. Perhaps it would be better if I found someone younger; maybe that lovely daughter of yours._

Mamilton's eyes widened and he gasped in horror. _You stay away from her! _He signed quickly.

Now all traces of humor were gone from the old elf's face, he suddenly looked quite sinister. _You've learned first-hand just how far our power reaches, Log-Leaper. Quite frankly, I'd like to kill you right here, but I need your technical knowledge to finish what I started. If you work with us, I can assure you your daughter will go unharmed. I'm sure you can imagine what the consequences will be otherwise. I'll give you two weeks to make your decision; think it over, but remember: I'm watching you. _

Rognab was almost at the door before Mamilton was able to move. He quickly blocked the elf's way. _I can't let you hurt anyone again._

_You're referring to the war, aren't you?_ Rognab smiled wistfully. _Things did get out of hand that time. But you needn't worry; I've had to recruit new followers and they needed reassurance. No more People shall be killed because of the Jalingers._

Mamilton was thrown off by the elf's sincere-sounding statement._Then what do you want to do this time?_

Rognab shrugged. _The same thing I always do; try to take over the world._

The two stared at each other while Mamilton thought out how to word his next question.

_How can you do that now, though? _he finally asked._ The LEP destroyed your old above-ground communications network, and they'd be bound to notice if you set up another one._

Rognab smiled again. _It's true, the LEP have gotten much more high-tech these days. But what they didn't count on was my finding a better _low-tech_ way. Let's just say it was natural extension for me. I've even gotten a pair of Mud whelps to run it for me._

Mamilton's eyes widened. _What? Who?_

The elf grinned. _Oh, just a pair of birds that were already in the business._

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Matt looked around anxiously as she and Butler came back into the stadium. Artemis had said to meet him back there in ten minutes, but it had been considerably longer than that. Finally she caught sight of Artemis as he ran up the stairs to them. To her surprise he didn't slow down as he got closer; in fact he went right past them.

"Artemis?" Butler called after him.

The boy paused briefly to address his bodyguard. "Something important has come up, Butler. We have to leave immediately."

The manservant nodded and started after him, but Matt ran ahead of them and cut them off. "Wait a second, where are you two going? What's happened?"

For a moment she thought she saw a guilty glint in Artemis' eyes, but the next second it was gone, and she couldn't be sure.

"It's a personal matter, Matthew; I don't have to explain it to you."

Matt's eyes widened. "What?"

"I mean, I don't have time to explain it too you. Sorry, but I'm in a bit of hurry. Stay here and tell Juliet I had to head back to school early. I'll see you later." Without giving her a chance to respond Artemis rushed out of the stadium, leaving a very confused Matt in his wake.

However, Matt didn't stay confused for very long; she felt anger and resentment begin to build up inside her. The Toad Ball game had just ended, so she hurried back down to the locker rooms to meet her brother, muttering crossly to herself along the way.

"Honestly, I just forgave the boy for lying to me, and now he's going off doing who knows what. Doesn't have to explain it to me, my foot. I'd think that by now he'd owe me a better explanation than that." Her rant was cut short when she caught sight of Theo in the crowd. He was talking and laughing with Juliet; apparently the game had gone well.

"Oh, hello, Matt," Theo said when he saw her. "What did you think of the match? I thought it was one of our best yet. It looks like Juliet is a bit of a natural at it."

Matt grimaced. "Sadly, I didn't get to see much of the game Theo. I was a bit occupied with other things."

Theo's smile faded and he began to look concerned. "What happened with Artemis? Did he take things badly?"

"No. Well, at first he did, but he got over that quickly and we forgave each other and everything was looking just peachy, but then five minutes ago he went rushing out of here with Butler, without even bothering to explain why."

While Matt fumed, Juliet bit her lip. What had Artemis done now, she wondered. "Maybe I should go talk to him," she said. "His parents wanted me to check up on him, anyway. Do you know where he went?"

Matt sighed. "He said he was going back to school. It was the first time I ever saw him in a hurry to go there." She turned to her brother. "I need to go after him, Theo. I'm not going to let him off easily anymore. Can you drive me to St. Bartleby's?"

"Sorry, Matt, but I have to deal with things around here. You know how chaotic Toad Ball makes people."

Matt was about to protest, but Juliet interrupted. "Don't worry, I'll take you. But Theo explained your situation to me, so I think you might want to change back into your uniform first."

Matt would have liked to yell at her brother for revealing her secret to yet another person, but she was in a bit of a hurry, so she settled for a quick glare before following Juliet to her car.

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Holly fumed as she flew through the night's sky. She had had to work through mountains of paperwork to get her phone back online, and when she had finally been able to call Artemis, the brat had hung up on her!

It had been the last straw; the months of pent-up frustration had suddenly come to a boiling point. Holly had been planning to go to the surface to complete the ritual that night anyway; but now she was ready to do a bit of screaming when she got to the surface too, and she knew just who she'd be screaming at.

Had she been in a better mood, she might have marveled at the fact that her attitude had achieved a record-breaking time in getting a shuttle, securing a decent set of wings, and wading through security to get to the surface. The whole affair had taken less than an hour, and she was now rocketing towards Artemis' school to finish their conversation and give him a piece of her mind.

In a few moments she spotted the building and landed, shielding herself as she did. Luckily St. Bartleby's was in a fairly isolated part of Ireland, so there were few people around who might see her. Still, Holly kept her guard up; she wasn't supposed to be anywhere near a human dwelling. She was counting on Foaly making sure that no one found out where she was, but she hated to think what would happen if she were spotted.

She padded around to the back of the building; Artemis had told her during their last conversation which window to go through to get to his room and had given her permission to enter it. She quickly deactivated the window's alarm and climbed into the room. The lights were off, so it was clear that her favorite Mud Boy wasn't back from wherever he had been yet. Still, she took a look around; Artemis wasn't the type to hide, but you never really knew with him.

As she moved through the room and closer to the door, she heard someone running down the hall. Holly moved closer still to see if it might be Artemis, but she soon regretted the decision. The door burst open and slammed Holly into the wall. She quickly began to lose consciousness, and her shield faded. She looked up at the Mud Girl who had come in and almost laughed at the shock on her face as she exclaimed. "My God! It's—" She never heard the rest.

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A/N: Ah, where do I begin? I suppose in the same place I always do: apologizing for taking so long to update. I'm sure no one's really mad at me about this but I still feel guilty.

Anyway, Holly's on the surface now! Holly and Artemis have spoken for the first time since chapter six! The timelines match up! I actually found a way to make the sign language important! I've put in new plot elements and resolved old ones! I have a never-ending stash of exclamation points! And (most importantly) I've finally gotten this story to be a hundred pages! I'm throwing a party!

Thank you everyone for giving me the encouragement to work this hard and this long on this story. And thank you once again to my unbelievable betas Elflover and Inkheart. I really owe you the world. A grammatically correct world.


	16. Discoveries

**Chapter Sixteen: Discoveries**

"All right, I know you've been slacking lately and I've been doing my best to ignore it since I know you're getting pretty old and it's to be expected, but this is the last straw. Now you're just being flat-out lazy and, d'arvit, that's not something I'm going to put up with. This is an important job you have and if you refuse to do it you I _will_ have you replaced."

Foaly was in a bad mood. It wasn't without reason; in fact he had several things he could be upset about at that moment. An evil secret society was plotting to take over the world and had kidnapped the woman he lo— cared greatly about, and the one most capable of rescuing her had just insisted on leaving for the surface to take out her frustrations on an overly-pompous mud-boy.

"And don't think you can't be replaced either. You've been acting high and mighty for years and I think I wouldn't be the only one happy to see you go…"

However, Foaly had already worried himself sick over all these things separately and collectively, and having become frustrated with his inability to help, he was currently trying to get his mind off his worries. That was why, when the coffee machine had refused to work, he had snapped.

"Did you just laugh at me? Don't try and cover it with a gurgle, I heard you! You're not lazy at all, you're malicious! You're doing this on purpose, you enjoy tormenting me!"

Now it wasn't in Foaly's nature to do things like scream and break things, no matter how frustrated he got, so instead of finding something blunt to hit the machine with he had decided to rant at it.

"Okay, that's it, you've picked the wrong day to try and push my buttons. I've been trying to be nice but the truth is you're a piece of junk! Do you have any idea how obsolete you are? I've seen toothbrushes more technologically advanced than you! I bet I couldn't even sell you for scrap metal."

His co-workers had ignored his tirade for the first ten minutes; Foaly was, of course, the office eccentric. After half an hour however, even the most seasoned officers were finding themselves disturbed by the centaur's angry remarks.

"Don't you stare at me with that smug expression; the other appliances don't even like you. Just last week I heard—Oh, hello Commander."

Commander Sool had decided to deal with Foaly personally after twelve separate complaints had been lodged against him within fifteen minutes. Normally the commander would be thrilled at the opportunity to get the centaur in a bit of trouble, but he had heard from a gnome in reception that Foaly's sister had come in several weeks ago talking about a family emergency. Sool didn't really care what was happening in the technician's personal life, but if something serious had happened it would be bad for the commander's public image to deal with Foaly harshly right now.

Sool tried to smile sympathetically, which was really more scary than anything, and put his hand on Foaly's shoulder. "Foaly, I think it's time you stopped yelling at the coffee machine."

The centaur blushed as he realized how loud he must have been being and took a side step so the commander would stop touching him. He thought quickly to try to come up with a way to explain his actions without making himself seem crazy, but thankfully Sool saved him the trouble.

"I understand that you've been behaving very stressed lately, maybe it would best if you took a bit of a vacation." Sool let his smile drop. "Quite frankly I don't really trust you around dangerous tools regularly. There's no way I'm going to let you tinker with any weapon designs or whatever it is you do if you're wound tightly enough to explode at an appliance."

Foaly smiled nervously. "Right sir, sorry about that, I really don't need a vacation though. I just–"

Sool glared. "I don't want to hear it. Right now you're a danger to everyone here. I'm letting you off easy, just take a couple of weeks off and feel grateful I'm not forcing you into therapy."

Foaly groaned inwardly, he didn't like where this was going.

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Half an hour later the centaur found himself practically being shoved out the station's front door. He grumbled as he reached the bottom of the stairs, it seemed he now had another reason to be in a bad mood.

Still, even Foaly had to admit he was wound a little too tight if he was snapping at appliances. What he needed was someone to mock until he felt better. Foaly thought about it for a moment before the obvious occurred to him.

A smile formed on the centaur's face; after all, it had been far too long since he had been able to spend some quality time with his favorite dwarf.

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Estella was in a bad mood. Not only had she been kidnapped, she had been starved for days afterward, and even now, when she had a feeding tube in her arm, no one was willing to explain what was going on.

At first she had been going in and out of consciousness, possibly for a few days, but now she had finally regained enough strength to take in her surroundings. Not that there was much to see, just some standard medical equipment, some of it quite dated, and the occasional technician or nurse that would come to check on her.

It felt like it had been ages since Estella had heard a voice besides her own. Her visitors refused to say a word to her so she had no real idea where she was. On the rare occasion that more than one person came in at once they would only communicate through sign language; it was very frustrating.

Estella wasn't by nature an aggressive person and so she hesitated to try and escape; but eventually her frustration at having no idea what was going on overwhelmed her fears and she decided she'd have to jump the next person to walk through the door.

As if on cue she heard the door unlock and open behind her. Estella hurried to her hoofs and prepared to face whatever fairy the Jalingers might have sent. But when she turned around all thoughts flew out of her head. Before her stood the person she had begun to think she might never see again: her father, Mamilton Lunos.

For a moment Estella didn't believe her eyes, it didn't seem possible that he could really be there. But it was definitely him, he looked a bit more frazzled and much more tired than he had, but he still had the same scraggily gray hair, the same wrinkly face, and the same sad eyes. Estella hurried over to him and hugged him tightly.

She didn't even realize she was crying until she tried to speak and it came out as a mangled sob. She cleared her throat and tried again. "Where have you been Papa? I was so scared when you disappeared and I saw those tracks outside your window, I thought you'd been kidnapped! Why did you run away Papa? Why are you working with these Jalingers? Please, tell me what's going on!"

Mamilton smiled sadly at his daughter, it had been far too long since he had been able to speak with her, but he was glad that she had recovered her health at least. Only a week ago she had been starved and frail, kept isolated at Rognab's order. Thank goodness the cruel elf had finally decided to let her out.

Mamilton pushed the thought aside; he had other things to think about right now, and a lot of explaining to do. Still, he wasn't ready to start. Estella had always looked up to him so much growing up; he hated to reveal his dark history to her.

"I'm sorry Stelly," he said. "I never wanted for you to get involved in all this, but I understand that I owe you an explanation. All of this started, for me at least, eight hundred years ago, back when I was earning my graduate degree at my technology university.

"I was the top of my class by far and I specialized in the field of robotics. I was different then, more arrogant, more radical. I knew the inventions I was making were astounding my professors and I was ready to shake the world with them. I wanted my robots to change the world; I just needed to figure out how. That's when I was approached by Camilla and Evergreen."

Estella stiffened at the infamous names.

"Yes," her father continued, "they went on to become the leaders, or supposed leaders, of the Jalingers, but at that time they were just regular members and the Jalingers were just a bunch of radical collage students who wanted something to rebel against. No one saw them as any sort of threat.

"Unfortunately Evergreen wanted to change that. He truly believed that the People should reclaim the Earth's surface as their own and he wanted people to take the Jalingers' ideas seriously. He wanted me to build the Jalingers something that could cause some serious damage and bring attention and respect to their group.

"At first I didn't want to but then they converted me to their ideals. It sounded so unfair that the People were forced to hide like cowards underground from such an inferior race as the Mud Men. They told me what it was like to perform the ritual on the surface beneath a full moon. It sounded like a paradise and for all my intellect I never thought to question them. I'm sorry to say it but I joined them.

"Not long after we held a protest outside a local government building, trying to convince people to vote to eliminate shuttle travel restrictions. No one outside the group was taking our protest seriously though. Camilla decided it was time to use one of my inventions. I'd rather not tell you what I had built, I'm ashamed to even think about it, but it resulted in an explosion that destroyed the building we were outside. No one was killed, but there were a few close calls.

"After that almost all of the Jalingers were expelled, some of us even arrested, and our whole group had to go underground, no pun intended. Still, most of us continued to support our cause and we were able to proceed with our plans. It was Camilla who organized the infiltration of the government; she was a master strategist, while at the same time twisting our motives. Soon we were prepared to kill any enemies we had until we had enough support to conquer the Mud Men. I was in charge of designing our weaponry."

The old centaur covered his face in shame. "I wish I could tell you that I was against these ideas Estella, but there was a time when I was as ruthless as the rest of them. You don't understand what it was like though. The Jalingers logic all seemed so perfect then, so convincing. Camilla and Evergreen were beyond charismatic, when they spoke it was like there were gods in the room. It was impossible to think they could ever be wrong, I never felt any reason to doubt."

Estella was crying again, she had never known this part of her father and it scared her. The whole story was painful to listen to. "But if you were so certain that you were doing the right thing why did you change your mind? You seem so full of regret now."

Mamilton smiled sadly at her question, it brought back many bittersweet memories. "Shortly after the Jalingers revealed the power they had amassed to the People I was given an assistant. I had needed one to help me keep up with the sudden increase in demand for better technological weaponry and defense. We all had code-names in the Jalingers so I didn't know her real name, but I did know that she was a beautiful centaur that I was to call Naga. She eventually became your mother.

"I was so head over hooves for her that I started to get clumsy with my blue-prints. I kept putting them in odd places and leaving them disorganized. At least that's what I thought. After several months I caught Naga in my lab when she wasn't supposed to be. She was copying the designs we were working on to give to a rebellion group. She was a spy.

"When she saw me she was terrified. She started to tell me that she had infiltrated the Jalingers so she could get revenge, they had killed many friends of hers and she wanted to destroy them from within to make sure they never killed anyone else. She kept waiting for me to respond but I was too dumbstruck to do anything. My ideals were being twisted inside-out. I had always blindly supported everything the Jalingers told me, the bloodshed was far away, and it wasn't real. But here was this girl I loved in such pain because of what we had done.

"At the time I knew I should turn her in. She was a threat to everything the Jalingers stood for, but I didn't do anything. She spent the next few days in terror, wondering if I was going to expose her. I couldn't at that point though; she had allowed my eyes to finally be opened to the obvious and painful truth. Eventually I became so torn up about it that I broke down and had to run away. I never really understood why but Naga decided to come with me.

"Shortly after we left the rebels made their famous final assault and Evergreen and Camilla were executed. Without them the Jalingers soon feel apart and it looked like the world could actually be free of them. People everywhere were becoming hopeful but Naga and I knew better than that. Many of the Jalingers were gone but there would be survivors, and they would be after us and anyone else who betrayed them.

"That's why Naga and I went into hiding under Africa. It was utter chaos there and no one was likely to find us. We underestimated just how angry they were with us though. Their anger gave them the motivation to hunt for us for years. Finally they found us.

"It was a few years after you had been born. We were heading to a near-by town but when the shuttle arrived at the station it exploded. You and I were lucky enough to avoid the blast but your mother wasn't. The remains of a bomb were later found in the station but we weren't surprised, we knew it had to be our pasts catching up with us.

"After Naga died I ran away again. I moved to Haven because I didn't think anyone would suspect me moving to someplace so densely populated. It worked for a while, I was able to continue our family's traditional business and raise you, but Rognab was still able to find me. After that I wanted to run away again, but I'm old now, I'm in my final years, I had to go back to the Jalingers and face what they had in store for me. And above all else I had to make sure you would be safe."

Estella was sitting on the floor with her head whirling as she tried to take all of this in. "But why did you go to all the trouble of making it look like you'd been kidnapped? Why didn't you tell me the truth before?"

"I didn't want to tell you Stelly, I couldn't bear to think about how much it would hurt you. Still, I knew I couldn't just let the Jalingers come back into power. I staged my kidnapping so you would send for help.

"I underestimated you though, you already had suspicions about my past and so you took the case to the two least credible detectives you could find in the hopes that they would put you on the right track to finding me without learning that I had been a Jalinger.

"How do you know all of that Papa?"

"Rognab's been watching you and your detectives for a while now. He's the one who had you kidnapped while you were with that dwarf."

Estella's eyes widened. "I think know who you mean! Wasn't he the elf who came into our shop? I remember you looked shocked to see him, like you had known him before."

"Oh, I did," said Mamilton darkly. "He's an elf almost as old as the Jalingers themselves and the only true leader they've ever had."

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Artemis was in a bad mood. Just when he had finally solved the troubling problem of Matt something far worse had come along. Now there was some tyrannical group of fairies about to attack humanity. It seemed clear to Artemis that he was never going to be able to enjoy a day without dramatic surprises or running across someone who wanted to kill him. It was times like this that he almost wished he wasn't quite such an amazing genius, life would be a great deal simpler.

Artemis had been sitting silently next to Butler for the past five minutes as they drove back to St. Bartleby's; however when he looked at his manservant he realized he should probably explain what was going on.

"So what do you want us to do?" Butler asked once he had heard Holly's story.

"I believe that this Jalinger group is manipulating Crane and Sparrow into stealing certain paintings at certain times to act as code for their group. If you'll recall Ms. Kagawa said that Crane and Sparrow had been working for an unknown third party that she had only seen the eyes of on a video phone. That was the technique Briar Cudgeon used to mesmerize that French detective during the goblin rebellion. It can't be a coincidence.

"I think we should go to Crane and Sparrow and cut off their trade once and for all. I'm going to need access to my computers at the manor though. If I'm going to plan this decently I'll need to know exactly what they've been up to. But drop me at St. Bartleby's first, there are some things I should pick up."

Butler nodded and a few minutes later they pulled up in front of the school. Artemis hastily got out of the car and started to hurry up the school's front steps. He was in such a rush that he barely even noticed when he bumped into someone on the way up. However, he was soon forced to acknowledge the encounter when the person grabbed his wrist and spun him around.

Despite his rather distracted state of mind Artemis still had several scathing comments on the tip of his tongue, he wasn't about to let anyone rough-house him like that, however they all died away when he saw that it was Artemis Fowl Senior standing before him.

"Father! This is a surprise. What made you decide to come visit me so suddenly?"

Mr. Fowl looked very serious, in fact he looked downright grim, and for a moment Artemis was worried that some family emergency had occurred.

"Artemis," his father said slowly, as if he were trying to restrain a great amount of anger, "I want you to come home with me right now. You have some serious explaining to do."

Artemis looked at his father strangely, just what was going on here? It was lucky that he had to go to Fowl Manor anyway, otherwise Artemis might have had to argue with his father until he could break away. Whatever Fowl Senior was angry about couldn't take precedence over the danger the People were in right now. Artemis would just have to lock himself in his room as soon as they got home.

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A/N: I'm very very sorry about the horrible delay for this update. I've had a lot going on and I had a long bout of writer's block. Fear not though! I've already started working on chapter seventeen so my next update should be much sooner. Thank you all for your patience and I hope you enjoyed the chapter.


	17. Things Unveiled

**Chapter Seventeen: Things Unveiled**

Normally Matt would be disappointed if events made her lose a perfectly good bad mood. This time though, any thoughts of being angry had completely flown from her head.

When she had first burst into Artemis's room, determined to give him a piece of mind, she had hit someone standing behind the door. At first she assumed it was Artemis and felt a slight satisfaction, but upon closing the door she saw that she was mistaken.

"My God! It's… an Oompa Loompa?"

In truth Matt wasn't entirely sure what the little creature before her was, but, unless a clever disguise was involved, she was fairly sure it wasn't human. Matt got the feeling that she had just stumbled across yet another thing that Artemis would need to do some explaining about.

Tentatively she moved closer to the little person, who was now sprawled out on the floor. Unfortunately she had just gotten close enough to notice the creature's pointed ears when the door flew open again, this time connecting with Matt's skull.

"Oh geez, I hope I didn't just give you a concussion." Juliet closed the door behind her to see what damage she had done. To her surprise there was a creature on the floor that she had never seen before but somehow seemed very familiar. Juliet closed her eyes for a moment as a headache of her own came over her.

"Matt, who is that?"

Matt looked up from cradling her head. "I don't know. I was still trying to figure out _what_ she is when you decided to bludgeon me with the door. I'm fine by the way, thanks for asking."

Juliet ignored her and moved to take a closer look at the mystery creature. As Matt had guessed it definitely seemed to be female, but the stranger thing was that it was glowing. Juliet shook her head. No, it wasn't glowing, there were just blue sparks traveling up her body to where the door must have hit her.

_It's healing magic_, said some part of Juliet. She wasn't sure where the words came from, but they felt right. She had learned that it was usually best to trust these kinds of instincts.

Suddenly the blue sparks stopped and the creature began to move.

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Mulch groaned loudly when he saw Foaly across the street from the detective agency. He had been hoping to take a break from his and Holly's never-ending investigation. Holly had left a few hours ago to beat up the Mud Boy or something, and it had looked like Mulch was finally going to have a moment of peace.

But no, here was Foaly, back again after only a few hours; apparently he didn't think his job was worth spending a full shift at. There weren't many things that really annoyed Mulch, but that centaur was quickly climbing to the top of his list. For almost two weeks now it had seemed that Foaly wasn't able to say anything to the dwarf except "Have you found Estella yet?", "Have you found any clues?", "Have you made any progress what-so-ever?", and "Has all of your detective experience come from bad movies or did you read up on some tips from James Bond novels too?" Mulch had no idea who James Bond was, but he knew an insult when he heard one, and from the look on Foaly's face as he trotted up the front stairs, he was bound to hear more of them soon.

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During the journey home, the air around Artemis was particularly tense. Under ordinary circumstances he would have most likely noticed the tension and tried to figure out the cause of it; after all, it wasn't like his father to be this angry. However, right now Artemis was too preoccupied with the problems of the fairy world, which was hard to focus on anyway thanks to the resurfacing image of the hurt look on Matt's face when he had left her behind without an explanation.

Artemis hoped that she wasn't too angry, especially since he was going to have to lie to her again to explain his hasty departure. He felt a twinge of guilt at the thought but pushed it aside; he had more important things to worry about. From the recording he had seen, it was clear that Rognab was hoping to create a new uprising against humans, probably expanding into an all-out war. He was communicating around the world by having key paintings stolen and moved to other places, and he had apparently somehow gotten Crane and Sparrow to be his middlemen. That explained why they had been trying so hard to kill Artemis after he had fouled up their network by stealing the _Old Woman in the Wood _painting.

For a second Artemis felt his heart stop. Of course, the stolen painting; that must have been why his father had come for him, why he was so furious. Somehow his father had found out.

Artemis tried to maintain a cool disposition as his mind raced. He didn't know just how much his father had found out, but it was bound to be enough. Artemis tried not to leave any trails, but he had left some encrypted files on his computer back home. His father must have hacked into them. That meant he had already suspected Artemis was up to something; he had had reason to invade his son's privacy and had known what to look for. If that much was true, then Artemis Senior had probably been very thorough in his investigation.

Artemis grimaced. His father was a very smart man. If he knew Artemis was a criminal, then he probably knew about the vast majority of his crimes. There would be no point in denying it; it seemed that now he would finally have to face some consequences for his actions.

He smiled grimly; at least Holly wouldn't be there to watch.

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Before Holly opened her eyes, she tried to remember exactly what had happened to her. She had broken into Artemis's room and then…gotten hit with a door…really hard. It must have been hard enough to knock her out for a moment, because she didn't remember falling, and she was most definitely on the floor now. But if someone had opened the door, that meant they had come into the room, and they had probably noticed the strange little creature on the floor.

Holly strained her memory, hoping against hope that it had been Artemis who had bludgeoned her with a door. Her heart sank as she recalled the shocked-looking Mud Girl who had stared at her before she had blacked out. Holly's heart sank even further as she tuned into the voices in the room. There was more than one person there. She listened more closely. It seemed that she hadn't been unconscious for very long; from the conversation Holly could tell that she had only just been discovered. More importantly, one of the voices was familiar.

She opened her eyes hesitantly and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She saw the girl who had knocked her out first, a lanky child in a school uniform, but it was the other person that made Holly feel hopeful. It had been almost two years since she had seen Juliet, with her there all Holly had to do was mesmerize the other girl and then Juliet would be able to help her find Artemis.

"Um, hello, Miss Oompa Loompa, or whatever you are." Holly stared blankly at the nervous-looking school-girl. What under Earth was an Oompa Loompa? "Are you a friend of Artemis's? Are you…his creation or something?"

For a moment Holly forgot all about her plans to mesmerize the girl. She was quite clearly insane. "His creation? What are you talking about, Mud Girl?" Holly turned to Juliet. "What have you been telling her?"

However, it didn't seem like the former bodyguard was going to be much help. Juliet was currently wearing a thoroughly mystified expression, as though Holly was someone she didn't quite recognize. Holly's eyes widened at that thought; it was true, Juliet didn't recognize her. She had never gotten her memories about the People back. The situation had suddenly gotten much more complicated.

Matt looked back and forth between the two women. "Do you two know each other then? Juliet, what exactly is this person? What's going on?"

Juliet was quiet for a moment, but then something seemed to come to her and she began to speak, more to herself than anyone else. "She's a fairy. Artemis captured her a few years ago…He had figured out that their were fairies living underground and he kidnapped this one so he could get their gold, but then they froze time and—"

"Juliet!" Holly broke in. "As happy as I am that you're getting your memories back, could you please stop spewing out all of the People's secrets? A mesmer doesn't always take you know."

Juliet blinked as she realized what she had been doing. Her new-found memories would have to wait; right now something had to be done about Matt, who was probably thinking she had gone crazy by this point.

Oddly enough Matt's expression was only one of moderate surprise. "Alright then," she said holding out a hand, "my name is Matt, it's nice to meet you. I'm guessing you don't want me to call you Miss Fairy, so could you tell me your name?"

Holly stared at the schoolgirl dumb-struck and hesitantly took her hand; this situation was just getting stranger and stranger. "My name is Holly. Um, are you all right Matt?" She looked into the tall girl's eyes and laced her voice with the mesmer. "You seem to be a bit too calm for someone who's just learned about the existence of fairies, maybe you should get some rest."

"No, I'm fine," said Matt, seemingly oblivious to the hypnotic effect of Holly's voice. "I've just had a rough day. At this point finding a mythical creature in my best friend's room makes perfect sense. By the way, do you know where Artemis is?"

Holly shook her head, now thoroughly mystified. Not only was this human remaining perfectly calm in a situation that would send many into a state of shock, but the mesmer seemed to be having absolutely no effect on her.

Juliet spoke up. "Well, it looks like we all have a lot of questions for our favorite boy genius. I happen to know his cell phone number; why don't we give him a call?"

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Artemis paced back and forth in his room. As soon as they had gotten home his father had insisted that Artemis confine himself so that his parents could have a moment to talk. Although a part of Artemis was angry at the childishness of being sent to his room, he was too busy planning to give it much thought.

Before he had gone upstairs he had given Butler his fairy phone and ordered him to leave the grounds of the Fowl estate in case Holly called. Come what may Artemis could not risk having his parents learn about the People.

Just then his door opened and Fowl Senior stepped inside followed shortly by a distraught-looking Angeline. Looking at his mother Artemis had a sudden urge to confess every misdeed he had ever done, if only so he could come clean, but he knew there was nothing to be gained by such an admission. If he admitted to something they didn't even know about yet it would only make an already dark situation far worse.

His father cleared his throat and began to speak rather grimly. "Artemis, I know that you are by no means an ordinary boy and I have never expected you to be one. You have always shown extraordinary skill and determination to achieve whatever goal you set your sights on, regardless of how it may affect others.

"I'll admit that this is at least partially my fault. I was never a very good role-model for you, Artemis. I always taught you to strive for power, no matter what the means. Since the incident on the Fowl Star I've been trying to make up for my mistakes, especially in regard to you. However, because of my guilt and the way you had been raised I knew I could only hope to change your values gradually. That was why I didn't do anything when I first found out you were continuing your criminal activities against my wishes. I know the thrill that comes from having a plan go well and it was natural that you would want to continue."

Artemis frowned, he had expected his father to have been angry about his crimes, but it seemed more like he was trying to make as many excuses to explain his son's behavior as possible. It also seemed that his father had known about his illegal activities for some time. Why was he confronting him now? There had to be something else going on.

"I had also noticed that your thefts were shifting to a more noble nature. My hope was that they would in fact help you to become a better person, but it seems I was sadly mistaken." Mr. Fowl gazed sternly yet sadly at his son before continuing. "Artemis, stealing is one thing but I'm not about to sit back and watch you become a murderer!"

He threw a newspaper onto Artemis's bed, but it was a few moments before the young genius noticed; he was too paralyzed with shock. Why on Earth would his father think he was a murderer? He slowly turned to look at the paper and his eyes widened when he saw the headline his father had opened to.

'Japanese Tourist Found Dead on Hotel Roof-top'

Artemis snatched up the newspaper and hastily read the article. Tomoe Kagawa's body had been found about a week after his confrontation with her but the information had been with-held from the press for a few days so the police could investigate possible foul play. It had originally been thought that she had been killed by some sort of electrical shock, but since no possible means had been discovered her death was being attributed to heart failure.

Artemis tossed the newspaper aside in a show of disgust. "You don't honestly think that I murdered that woman do you?"

His father scowled. "I don't want to believe it Artemis, but it fits too perfectly to be a coincidence. I've been remotely accessing your computer for a while now and I know you were investigating that woman right before she died. She was staying in the same town as you, she had affiliations with the Russian mafia, you clearly had some sort of contact with her, and it was even a Saturday when she died!"

Artemis was beginning to get angry and that was never a good thing when quick thinking was needed. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Although it pained him to admit it, his father's reasoning made perfect sense considering what he knew. The best course of action would be to just tell the truth, after all Artemis was in fact innocent…for once, but that meant saying that Kagawa had been remotely electrocuted by a device that there was no evidence had ever existed right when she was going to reveal who her boss was. Even in his head it sounded as plausible as B-grade science fiction. A few omissions would be necessary, but if his parents already knew about how much he had lied to them these past few years and were now accusing him of murder, would they be willing to believe what he said?

Artemis looked at his parents more closely, hoping for some clue to their thoughts; even now they probably knew more than they were letting on. His father's face was completely blank, clearly something he had mastered from years of practice, but his mother's was a different story; it was a mix of distress, hurt, and… hope?

Of course, his parents wanted him to be innocent; all he had to do now was tell enough truth to make the lies sound realistic.

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It is a very simple thing to intercept a phone call. It is even simpler when the call is being relayed by a primitive satellite created by a primitive species and you have technology several centuries ahead of theirs. However, despite just how simple the act was, the conversation being intercepted was of the utmost importance to the secret plans of hundreds, and the even more secret plans of the one who lead them.

**10:30 PM, October 29th **

"Hello?"

"Finally! I've been trying to call you for the last forty minutes! Where are you?"

"I'm sorry for your inconvenience Juliet, but in a bit of a predicament right now."

"What's happened? Have you been abducted?"

"In a manner of speaking. My parents have discovered some unsavory things about me and are insisting that I not leave the house until they find some way to reform me. They're also rather upset about the assassin that Butler had to kill to protect me a few weeks ago."

"So what did they find out that they're so upset about? Did they figure out that you're a thief?"

"…Is there a memo going around with that information? I'm getting a bit tired of people confronting me with knowledge they're not supposed to have. Did Butler tell you?"

"No, I actually just remembered about an hour ago. Speaking of which, I also recall that a few years ago there was someone you kidnapped…and she's sort of sitting next to me right now."

"What? What on Earth is Holly doing above ground?"

"It's something about being mad at you and wanting to get some information out of you even if she has to throttle it from you."

"Charming. Well, it looks like tonight is going to be one of the most stressful ones of my life. Kindly tell Holly that she can use her phone to call Butler and get all the information she needs. As much as I'd love to meet with her, I'm trapped in my house. My parents are keeping a ridiculously close watch on me. They think I'm in the bathroom now and I can't afford to be gone any longer, so if there's noting else…"

"Well, actually…"

"Why are those suddenly the worst two words I've ever heard?"

"Holly's not the only one here with me; your little cross-dressing friend was looking for you too. We all sort of… crashed into each other in your room."

"What! You mean Matt's seen Holly?"

"Yes, but on the bright side she seems to be taking it well, which is good because Holly's mesmer doesn't seem to be working on her."

"And that just makes me feel worlds better. Juliet, I hear someone coming. I have to go, but I'm counting on you to keep the situation as in-control as possible. Call Butler to help you. I'll contact you as soon as I can."

"Good luck Artemis."

**End Transmission**

This was an unexpected, but fortunate turn of events. Both Holly Short and Artemis Fowl were out of the way. Now they just had to make sure things stayed that way.

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A/N: Ha! I bet you'd all thought that I'd forgotten about this story, or that I'd given up! Not so! I was just…kind of busy…with my utter lack of things to do…and school, I do recall that there was school at one point. Anyway, the important thing is that I'm back and I'm still writing (and this story is kind of, maybe, sort of, just a little bit near to being done). Did you know I've been writing The Charity Case for over a year now? That is way too long for me to like one story. I'm hoping you still like it too.

Speaking of my writing, I'd like to quickly mention that I'm working on another story (though this one still takes priority) which will hopefully have its first chapter up in a week or two. I'm trying my hand at femmslash in the Beauty and the Beast fandom by pairing Belle with one of the triplets in her town. Be sure to check it out if you're interested.

Finally, I'd like to say that this chapter has received the Beta Curse. Although most of the chapter was read over and fixed up one of my betas went to France and the other got banned from her computer before I was able to finish. So any errors that still exist are entirely my fault. Still, thank you for the work you were able to do Elflover and Inkheart. You guys really are awesome.


	18. Quests and Questions

**Chapter Eighteen: Quests and Questions**

Foaly hated having nothing to do, not because it made him feel bored, but because it was when he was bored that he did the most ridiculous things. The worst time had been when Root, after having had to put up with one too may snide comments from the tech department, had savagely cut his budget. For the next few weeks Foaly had been unable to afford any parts he needed to do his inventing and had spent his time building elaborate sculptures out of straws from the LEP cafeteria right outside of Root's office. Needless to say, the tech department's budget was very quickly restored.

Now, however, Foaly was being denied even straws, he had been reduced to _tax forms_. Although, in truth, the filling out and filing was a very useful activity. Despite having been in business for nearly a year no one at the Short-Diggums Detective Agency had been keeping any sort of records for the government, most likely because of their utter lack of actual cases.

Of course that would all change as soon as Estella's father was found. Then there would be some money to account for and…and Foaly didn't really care. He cursed his thoughts for once again wandering onto the one subject he was really trying to avoid thinking about. It had now been almost two weeks since Estella had disappeared. Two weeks without so much as a clue or even a note of reassurance from the supposedly reformed terrorist group that had taken her. As much as Foaly tried to hide it from himself he was worried.

Really worried.

So worried that he was going to fill out these damn forms in _triplicate_ if it would get his mind off her!

With a groan Foaly tossed his pen aside. It was no use, now he was depressed. That could only mean it was time to annoy Mulch again.

"But really, why would you go so out of your way to get caught time after time? Do you have some **thing** for prisons? If you do you can tell me, I swear I won't tell Holly, but you might want to see someone about that, maybe a support group."

Foaly smirked to see that the dwarf was gnashing his teeth in a particularly gruesome fashion. He had been throwing out similar insults for the past hour or so to help pass the time and by now Mulch was clearly trying to suppress the urge to bite him.

"Being a thief is a lot harder than it looks, hoofer. If anyone else had tried to pull off all the heists I did they wouldn't have even managed half of them!" Mulch returned to his current task, polishing his rock collection, with a venomous air.

Foaly ignored the waves of hate radiating in his direction. "Hoofer? Was that really the best you could think of? I thought you hardened criminals had all sorts of unpleasant things to call each other. I guess that's what happens when you're the sort of convict who calls biting his way into a bunch of mud houses difficult heists and then still winds up getting caught. No wonder it took you a few centuries to figure out that you should quit, not that you're doing a much better job as a detective."

Mulch ground his teeth again; in mere moments his rock collection was bound to become air-born if Foaly kept this up. Fortunately for both of them it was then that a nervous-looking goblin came into the office.

"Um, is Miss Short here?" the newcomer asked tentatively.

It was a few moments before Mulch was able to string together a reply, he still wasn't used to people coming to ask about anything other than directions. "No…she's off doing…important…detecting…stuff."

"Oh…okay then."

The two continued to stare at each other while the air in the room got increasingly awkward. After several minutes it became obvious that neither of them intended to say anything else and Foaly knew that he could either break the silence or slowly go insane.

He cleared his throat and the goblin looked at him. "You know, Mr. Diggums works here too and I might as well be on the payroll. Add in that we both also have perfectly functional ears and it might seem like a good idea to talk to us about whatever you're here for instead."

The goblin looked a bit startled at this, but then sighed as if admitting that Foaly's suggestion was probably a good one.

"You've probably already heard of me," he said. "My name is Malvis. I talked with Miss Short about my…group about two weeks ago

Foaly's eyes widened. "You're the one who tried to get Holly to stop investigating the Jalingers by feeding her that phony 'We're not _really_ bad' story!"

Malvis looked taken aback. "No, I was telling her the truth. We really are—."

"Then why did you kidnap Estella?"

The goblin took a few steps back, since one never wants to be very close to something that can trample you when it's angry. "That's what I came here to talk to Miss Short about. I think there might be something wrong in the Jalingers."

Foaly and Mulch didn't say anything to that, but their expressions made it clear that it was a good thing that sayings weren't literal or they would have both gone blind from the obvious.

Malvis ignored them and continued. "When I spoke to Miss Short I told her that we'd arrange for her to see Mamilton so she'd know he was alright. I didn't think it would be a problem since he came of his own free will, but I haven't been able to see him, no one has. He's been in his lab constantly, doing something important. I heard a few weeks ago that he was giving our leader trouble and then Miss Lunos showed up. It didn't seem right. She always had guards with her and she clearly hadn't told you guys where she was going and…well…I guess it just got me wondering…"

"If maybe you really were in a revived terrorist group instead of a touchy-feely cult?" finished Mulch, looking like he was being a bit overwhelmed by the waves of stupidity crashing down on him. "I would have thought that someone in a gang would have enough street-smarts to figure that one out, but I guess that's what you can expect from a goblin."

"And I would have thought that someone with a criminal history would have enough street-smarts to realize that insulting someone who can throw fireballs at him might be a bad idea." Malvis snarled.

Foaly had seen too many rounds of arrests after ugly goblin-dwarf turf battles to not see where this was going and hastily cut in. "Alright, so you're feeling doubts. What did you expect us to do about it?"

"I was hoping you'd agree to let me take you to where Ms. Lunos is and you could get her out, find out what's going on. I'd do it myself, but I don't want the Jalingers to think that I'm doubting them." He sighed. "They've done a lot for me and they deserve more trust than I'm giving them."

Foaly immediately leapt up at the thought of finding Estella; he was ready to agree but Mulch cut him off.

"Hold on Hoofer, this sounds like a trap, a really bad one too. Why would this guy be willing to just take us to their headquarters when they've been keeping everything top secret until now?"

Foaly scowled. He had never thought a day would come when _Mulch_ would think of something he hadn't. Clearly the end of the world was fast approaching.

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Matt was beginning to feel very tired. Within the space of a few hours she had been caught in a dress by her best friend, resolved a major argument, and come back to school only to have a doorknob smash into her head. She'd also found proof of the existence of new sentient life and magic, but she was trying not to think about that.

When Matt had been younger she had dreamed of meeting a fairy and had always been absolutely certain that she would one day. Despite having since passed through the years of awkwardness and innocence-crushing that come with puberty she had secretly retained this certainty; which is why it was a shame Matt's day had been so stressful; she would have been ecstatic otherwise. As it was all she had energy for was trying to avoid wondering why Holly kept staring at her bug-eyes and talking with a syrupy voice. Matt had been waiting all her life to meet a fairy; she didn't want to remember it as the first time she'd been hit on by a woman.

She looked over to Juliet, who was on the phone with Artemis. Matt still wasn't entirely sure what was going on, but from what she heard it sounded like Artemis was alright, though not likely to show up anytime soon.

Matt looked up at the ceiling. It had been almost two months since she had first come to St. Bartleby's and met Artemis. In that time he had come to mean so much to her; he was the first real friend she'd ever had. It was strange to think that there was so much she had never known about him.

Just then her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Juliet say good-bye and hang up her phone.

"Alright Holly," she said, "It looks like Artemis is under house arrest for the time being. You're going to need to wait until my brother gets here to hear whatever he's supposed to tell you. And stop trying to use the mesmer on Matt, all it's doing is scaring her."

Holly sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Of course, nothing can ever be simple with Artemis Fowl."

Juliet ignored the elf and turned her attention to Matt. "I think it's best that you head off to bed now. Artemis and the rest of us have a lot to deal with tonight that has nothing to do with you. I'd appreciate it if you stayed out of the way."

Matt's eyes widened, surely Juliet couldn't expect her to just leave after everything that had happened that night. There was still far too much she needed an explanation for. Sadly Matt didn't get a chance to make any argument aside from a few stutters and exclamations of "But—," and "Wait!" as Juliet immediately began ushering her from the room. Matt tried to struggle, but for some reason her strength wasn't quite up to that of the professional wrestler's.

Soon Matt found herself in the hallway facing Artemis' locked door. She glared at it for a moment before turning on her heel and heading towards St. Bartleby's main entrance. Juliet had said that Butler would be coming to speak to Holly, maybe he'd be willing to give Matt a few answers first.

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Had Butler been able to take a step back and look at himself he would have realized immediately that something was not right. His thoughts were muddled at best and his movements seemed more like a sleepwalker's than an expert bodyguard's. It had begun the moment Artemis had taken him aside and told him to tell Holly about Crane and Sparrow and how the Jalingers were using them to relay their messages.

For some reason Butler had hesitated for a moment; there had been something he wanted to tell Artemis, something important. However, he hadn't been able to voice his concern before he found his thoughts becoming more and more incoherent. He had just mechanically nodded to Artemis and gone to the car to begin the drive back to St. Bartleby's.

When he arrived at the school almost all the lights were out. It was nearly eleven at night and St. Bartleby's had a strict curfew for its students. However, the main entrance was still lit up. Standing in the doorway was a man Butler recognized as the school's headmaster and standing next to him, looking rather relieved, was Matthew.

Matt smiled at Butler in a slightly nervous manner. "I'm glad you made it! I was starting to get worried when Artemis left without me, because of course I'm supposed to be going with him to his home for the weekend. Then the headmaster found me here and hadn't heard anything about me leaving so I was getting really nervous; but then of course I remembered you were supposed to be the one to pick me up!"

Butler stared blankly at her. Normally he would have seen through her babbling in a moment, but right his thoughts were so muddled he wasn't sure if Artemis actually had asked him to pick her up or not. After a few moments of silence Matt began to panic.

"You know, because you're supposed to come by here anyway, to go to Artemis' _room_ to get his _things._"

Butler decided to play along, "Of course." He turned to the headmaster. "I'm sorry sir; I'm just a bit tired. Master Burbenshire is supposed to come with me as I pack up some of Master Fowl's belongings. Now if you'll excuse me…"

He gestured for Matt to follow him and they headed up the stairs to the dorm rooms. For a moment the headmaster considered arguing but decided against it. It was getting late and he had no wish to end the day by getting into a dispute with someone nearly twice his size.

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Sorry for the massive delay. I've just been kind of sitting on this chapter for a while. I'd like to thank Hali for his/her wonderful review, which inspired me to finally post this chapter. I am still going to finish this story, but I'm also doing other writing now so I won't make any promises about when it will be updated. I hope you've enjoyed reading this chapter though.


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